Post on 28-Apr-2023
FEOST & FIRE
NATURAL ENGINES, TOOL-MAEKS & CHIPS
WITH SKETCHES DRAWN AT HOME
. AND ABROAD BY A
TRAVELLER
/?
EDINBURGH
EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS
MDOOCLXIII
CHAPTEE I.
CINDER HEAPS.
A CERTAIN hardy English traveller, in excellent health and
spirits, returning from Iceland, with the appetite of a hunter,
and the condition of a race-horse ; declared to his shipmates
that the country was " not worth seeing." " It was nothing,"
he said, "but a big cinder heap, as interesting as the dust
hills at Wolverhampton, and not a whit more fertile."
The traveller's description, though not complimentary, was
pretty accurate.
Volcanic products are very like furnace refuse, and all
Iceland is volcanic; but cinder heaps, great and small, are
Avorth sifting, for they throw light upon each other, and on
dark subjects. Slag, Lava, and Trap, were all melted stone,
and they are equally products of heat.
Even in a cinder heap there is much to be learned.
One branch of geology may be studied at a foundry
where stones are melted ; but something is first wanted t(j
bridge over the gulf which separates a rill of slag from a lava
flood ; and a visit to Iceland supplies the want.
One great steam-engine must be seen at work before the
ways of steam can be learned from a kettle ; but when it
is understood that steam-power is limited only by the size
of the engine and the amount of heat applied as force, then
models, drawings, descriptions, or even traces of work done
by natural steam-engines, are comprehensible.
B
2 CINDER HEAPS.
So it is on the large scale.
The tool-marks of natural heat must be seen in a large
volcanic country, before the action of tame heat working at
home on a small scale can be identified with volcanic action.
Earth heat has done great work in Iceland. The country
whose bare barren surface has recently been altered by two
mechanical forces, which upheave and grind down the crust
of the world, teaches principles on which geology is founded;
and when the lesson is learned, the scholar sees that a smelt-
ing house, a rubbish heap, a frying-pan, and the kettle, all
shew the action and the effect of the same forces working on
a smaller scale.
Iceland is a "cinder heap," but it is a very large one ; and
the lesson which it teaches is well worth the cost. Hecla may
only be one large valve in a great caloric engine ; but it is not
too large to be seen, and it is well worth looking at. The
two forces which have been set to shape the outer surface of
the crust of our globe, if not the globe itself, are now em-
ployed in busily finishing an island as large as Ireland. They
have worked and are working wdthin such narrow bounds,
that their work can be seen as a whole ; but on such a vast
scale that the performance of still greater tasks by the same
agents can be understood. These twin giants. Fire and Frost,
Heat and Cold, are as busy near Hecla as at Wolverhamp-
ton or Coatbridge, and their work is alike at home and abroad.
They move steam, the atmosphere, and the ocean, and
things moved by them ; they melt and freeze gas, water and
slag, lava and metal, and move things moved by them; they
shape clouds in the air, plates of slag, mounds in lava, and
great mountains on the eai'th ; they have upheaved and de-
pressed Iceland, Norway, and Scotland ; they have altered the
whole surface of the globe, and its upper crust, so far as it is
CINDER HEAPS. 3
explored ; and they may have done still greater things, if they
were the servants employed to do the work.
So a traveller, surrounded by mountains of ice and cinders,
may be driven by the work before him to think of the agents
employed to do it, and of Him who set them their tasks, who
said " Let there be light, and there was light," in the dawn of
time.
In furnaces and volcanoes, in models and steam engines,
in cinder heaps and in Iceland, in art and nature, certain
mechanical forces work, and movements and forms produced
by them are alike on all scales.
The tool-marks of fire and frost may be learned in their
workshop, and they may be set to work at home.
Fii; 1. Portrait of an old Friend and Preheptor.
CIIAPTEK IT.
HOME GEOLOGY.
A IIOINIE student of geology is forced to take a, great deal upon
trust, and has often to work sorely against the grain. He
may understand the teaching of practised men, and believe
what he is told ; but he cannot be familiar with the irresist-
ible power of natural forces, whose power he has only seen
displayed upon some pigmy scale.
A landsman who lias only seen a puddle in a storm, has
no clear notion of the Atlantic in a gale ; and so it is with a
man who has never been far from home.
He may have been familiar all his life with the form of
some great mountain covered with rich soil, grass, heather,
trees, and yellow corn in summer ; sprinkled with snow and
glittering with icicles in winter. He is taught that the
rounded form which he has known from his childhood, and
which has never changed within the memory of man, is due
to the wearing of floods of water, or of fields of ice.
But no home-bred Englishman has ever seen any power
in action which seems strong enough for the work described
as denudation.
The rivulets which trickle down the mountain could not
have done work of the kind if they liad worked as they do
now for countless ages. They do not make roimded shoulders
;
they cut deep furi'ows on smootli hill-sides.
lUirns meet in quiet lak(>s which mirror swelling hills
(111 cither side of some great glen, along Avhich a river
DENUDATION. 5
winds to the sea ; but the shape of the glen bears no resem-
blance to that of the small transverse furrows which rivulets
make, or to the winding river bed at the bottom of the glen.
If scooped out, it is clear that the main glen was made
with some coarser tool; and tliat the hill was rounded by
something different from streams of rain-water.
The great glen which crosses Scotland at the Caledonian
Canal never could be hollowed by streams like those which
have furrowed the long, smooth, steep hill-sides which make
its southern boundary,
Ben Wyvis, and hills like it, were not rounded by streams
like those which flow from their sides, and furrow them.
A little scratch on a romided smooth rock v.diich peeps
through heather on the steep side of a Inirn, is shewn triumph-
antly to prove how an enormous glacier, now replaced by a
little winter icicle, once filled up the glen, overspread a whole
tract of country, and ground its way slowly downwards, bear-
ing earth and stones on its surface, as leaves and sticks float
down a river to tlie sea. Green liillocks, from which loose
stones are now dug to gravel the roads, are pointed out at the
mouth of the glen to mark the spot where a local glacier once
ended ; and the student is told that ice carried stones overland
from the mountains, and left them in heaps when it melted,
like piles of floating rubbish stranded by some winter spate.
It is said that ice and cold water gromid down the hills
and scooped out the glens, and left water-worn moraines
behind them, because there is an ice-mark on the rock.
A man may believe it all vaguely, but he cannot realise
it if there is nothing like a glacier within his experience.
The face of a peasant who is told for the first time that
ice rounded the hill-tops where his sheep feed, is a stud}'.
But glaciers and cold rain-water alone will not account
b DENUDATION.
for many great gleus, because of their peculiar forms ; and
there are ice-marks which no mere land-glacier could make.
It may be that a man has lived all his life beside some
great stone fixed in a rich plain, buried in an old wood, or
perched upon a hill-top. He may have seen it gray with
lichen, or green and brown with moss and fern, or sparkling
in the sun like a great jewel when powdered with hoar-frost.
It has been an "earth-fast stone" ever since he can re-
member ; it looks as if it never could be moved from its place
;
perhaps tradition tells that some ancient giant hurled it at
his foes. The teacher declares that it is a "wandering block"
which first broke off and rolled down from a moimtain hun-
dreds of miles beyond the limit of vision, in some far distant
country ; and then sailed over the ocean on an ice-raft, and
finally sank to the bottom, where it lies.
The tradition seems far more probable. It is just as likely
that another stone of the same kind should now come sailing
on a cloud, and plmnp down amongst the hens in the barn-
yard, for there is no sea near the stone, and the nearest sea
has no ice-rafts.
It is vain to point at an ice-groove on the tip-top of a
high hill, and then assure a canny Scotchman that like marks
are to be found upon many similar isolated hill-tops, in the
British isles and elsewhere ; that all these high grooves seem
to bear some relation to each other, and that they were all made
by ice-floats while sailing over the hills, and dropping cargoes
of clay and stones in the sea, to make land for farmers to plough
on shore. It is contrary to the evidence of the senses. The
sea is far away, hills are high and steadfast ; and many ice-
grooves are but faintly marked now.
It is vain to point at illegible characters on the stone or
on geological maps, and try to explain how it must all have
UPHEAVAL, ETC. 7
happened long ago. It is not easy to expel old ideas and
take in a new stock ; and so the usual first-fruits of an ex-
planation of a fire-mark or a frost-mark is a look of incredulity
or contempt.
A geological student is taught that mountain-chains were
ocean-beds, that continents were groups of islands, that
islands are sunken mountains, that hills pop up their heads,
and dive down again like seals ; that if some glens are
grooves, some are rifts in the earth's broken crust ; that
the land has waves, and that the sea is comparatively at
rest ; but he never sees any of these changes happen.
He is assured that the cold, solid, gray rock, from which
an old moss-gi'OWTi tower has watched for centuries over
generations of actors in the world's history was once white
hot, and rose up through the sands of the sea ; that a quarry
was a sand-bank, and a stone in it a drifted log. But no
rocks, hot or cold, ever rise now in neighbouring seas, nor do
sand-banks and forests turn to stone and coaL
He knows that it is the nature and habit of all the rocks
and stones that he has ever seen, to fall as fast and as far as
they can, and then lie stilL He is taught that rocks and
stones move about, float in water, and fly through the air,
and have done so time out of mind.
By vigorous submission to authority, or by hard thinking,
a man may bring himself to believe that these are truths, not
waking dreams of book-learned men, or travellers' tales ; but
it is no light labour for simple men who have never seen
fire and frost at heavy work, to take it all in.
A certain venerable professor of natural history was in the
habit of taking a walk round Arthur's Seat once a year with
his class at his heels ; and it was his custom to pause beneath
certain basaltic colmnns, and gather his flock about him to
8 TEACHING AND EXPERIENCE
pick lip cnmiLs of knowledge, and hear the yearly open-air
Edinburgh lecture on geology.
In these days—some twenty years ago—there was no
" Queen's Drive/' but there was some fine green turf near the
rocks, and on one of these occasions a bevy of Edinburgh
wives and lasses had chosen the spot for a bleacliing green.
" What the diel's a' thae folk doin' there?" said one cummer.
" Oh, it's a daft cliiel gien them a lectur aboot Samson's
Eibs," said another.
And then they laughed a mocldng chorus, and fell to
work again at their wet napery.
Not all the professors in Edinburgh, not even Sir Eoderick
himself, could have persuaded the washerwomen that Sam-
son's Eibs had been pumped up hot out of the earth, or had
ever been anything but solid rocks since the world was first
created.
This hard crust of expei'ience must be quarried through
before knowledge can reach the understanding of home-bred
men, for daily experience seems to contradict what they are
taught.
But daily experience really agrees with geological teach-
ing, for the mechanical action of natural force is always the
same, though it varies in degree ; and this is felt and under-
stood when cold has been seen battling in earnest with heat.
A man begins to feel that cold is a mighty engine when
ho has seen a glacier, and heard it. Wlien he has seen it
move with acres of stones and gravel on its surface, and
launch cargoes upon ice-rafts, to sail wherever the wind may
blow them. He has learned a new alphabet when he has
seen polished rocks under and near moving ice, and grooves
and scratches freshly gouged out by stones in the ice. He
i^ains a new view of an old ridg(> of gravel, when he sees a
AT HOME AND ABROAD. 9
couical mound of loose rubbish newly shot from a groove
in blue ice, by a snow rivulet, and the end of a glacier fringed
by ramparts of such mounds. Thenceforth he knows a " ter-
minal moraine." He begins to understand how a clay field
may have come from some neighbourmg glen or distant coun-
try, when he has seen a thick, white, muddy river, smelling
of sulphur, bursting out of an ice cave, tearing through heaps
of debris, and busily engaged in spoiling a delta of its own
building to make another lower down, or to freight an iceberg.
Wlien he has seen all these movements and changes, these
tools and their marks—and they are all to be seen in Ice-
land, Norway, and Switzerland—it is easy to believe that
similar work was similarly done by the agency of cold and
weight elsewhere.
Then the action of large masses of ice, and great floods of
water, which hew out rock forms, and carry and arrange
banks, mounds, and plains of drift, clay, and boulders, is
recognised in the sliding of a plate of ice upon tlie bank of
a rivulet, or in the miniature work of a mill-stream on a
frosty day. Having learned the alphabet and the living
language, he can decipher the rock inscriptions of old ice.
So, when a man has seen one smoking volcano, with its
lava floods and cinder heaps still warm beneatli snow and
ice, and the curl that once played upon a river of melted
stone as sharp and clear upon a rock as the curl upon the
glacier river beside it, his ideas about steadfast and eternal
hills are changed. When he has seen stones, sand, and ashes,
that once rose up, repelled by lieat, and flew through the air
in defiance of gravitation, now strewed on the ground where
they fell, because the laws of attraction were the strongest in
the end, he gauis another new experience, and recognises a
force opposed to gravitation, M'hich meets him at ever}' turn.
10 TEACHING AND EXrEEIENCE
When he hcas seen the workshop of heat and cokl, he
learns to know the tool-marks of the two giant slaves wher-
ever he finds their work, and he finds it everywhere when
the lesson has been well learned.
The heat of a volcano is hut the same force which works
a furnace and a steam-engine ; the same forms result from its
action, and he sees them in familiar hills, in cmder heaps, and
everywhere. When the natural heat of the earth has been seen
to hurl clods and stones, drops and jets of water, steam and
smoke, far away from the earth's surface, to move freely for a
time in obedience to laws wliich govern the movements of
planets and earthly projectiles, it ceases to be an effort to
realise the fact that heat, cold, and gravitation, are forces
which together move projectiles in well-defined paths within
the bounds of our world, and it may be beyond them.
A man becomes familiar with these, his fellow-servants,
when he has eaten food cooked by nature's fire, and has slept
on a turf bed warmed by mother earth. As he lights his
morning pipe through a lens, with fire direct from the sun,
beside a pool of water boiled by fire in the earth, and watches
distant ice mountains through condensing steam, and tlunks
whence all the water came, how it was moved, and by what
forces, a traveller must realise that these useful giants who
can turn their hands to so many things, great and small, do
not confine their labours wholly to this world
He sees that heat boils a kettle, a steam-boiler, a geyser,
and a volcano ; lifts water at the equator to drop it at the
poles ; and will hand a cigar light from his quarters in the
sun, to a friend on earth who knows his ways.
He knows that cold cools the tea, and stops the engine,
seals up the hot spring and the volcano, sliakes down snow to
<n-ind tlic mountain which the other raised. Cold arrests the
AT HOME AND ABROAD. 11
motion which heat started : he knows that cokl puts a man's
pipe out when the time is come.
An Englishman seldom thinks of heat and cold as natural
mechanical forces, though he sees their work everywhere.
An Icelander who lives within sight of Hecla may have
seen the top of a momitain larger than Ben Nevis, red hot
;
with a stream of melted stone, as broad as the Thames at
London, flowing down its sides.
The stream is there now, though frozen, hard, cold, and
dark. Every year he sees water fall, flow, and freeze, and
hang on the slope as lava does. There is snow upon lava now,
and ice in caves beneath it.
He sees steam and boiling water burst up and sj)out from
the earth, and condense, and fall, and flow into stiU lakes,
freeze hard, and split ; and he can understand tha,t the great
shattered plam of stone on which he lives was liquid, and
rose, flowed, froze, and spht, like the water.
He knows that lava boils over, froths and freezes outside
Hecla ; so he can understand how bigger streams boiled up
elsewhere, before his ancestors came to the land.
A traveller who has gained a part of this Icelandic ex-
perience can apply it at home, and recognise past glacial and
igneous action in forms which remain to tell their origin to
those who can imderstand their meaning.
So a trip to Iceland is worth its cost.
The rugged features of nature are hidden or veiled in
fertile lands ; in the cold barren north they are clearly seen,
and stern though they be, they are well worth contemplation.
The desolate country is one of the gi'andest in the world,
though the prevailing feature in its landscapes may be dust
and ashes.
Atmospheric circulation, water falling and flowing, fluid
12
and solid ; sliding glaciers, freezing seas, ice rafts floating,
rocks wearing, sediment falling to form new beds, " denuda-
tion," and " deposition:"—downward movements from tlie
action of cold and weight :
—
Eising laud, hot springs, intruded rocks, lava, boiling, rising,
flowing, and freezing ; volcanic projectiles rising, freezing,
and falling in air ; upheaval of land, upward movements in
gas, fluid and solid, caused by heat':
—
Demolition and reconstruction by natural forces,—are not
all within daily experience at home.
Therefore, teaching and experience may seem to differ,
but they really agi'ee ; for natural agents work everywhere
in the same way, and the form of their work is alike at home
and abroad, on the smallest and on the largest visible scale.
The same powers work in a kettle, and in the Great Geyser;
both boil, and sometimes they boil over.
„/ ^^bL*>-*-''^--^
I'l.;. 'J. IJuii.iN.i II'.
Tiilir aii.l liMsiii .if tlir (;ic:it Ui'yscr, nftfi- .-ni Ei-ui'ti.ui, ISC,:.'.
CHAPTEE III.
GEOLOGY.
Geology teaches generally that great changes have taken place
on the surface of the earth, and it seems to pohit hack to some
distant time when a crust first cooled ahout a molten interior.
But there is nothing like a molten surface within common
experience. The world with which we are familiar is green
and smiling, and the old rugged crust is buried far out of
sight, or worn away. It takes skilled eyes to read the lessons
of our rocks. In Iceland nearly the whole surface has been
fused ; it is warm still in many places, and most of the rocks
are bare, so he who rides reads.
The modern geologist generally works slowly but surely
downwards through the outer crust of sedimentary rocks
which have settled layer upon layer above each other, and
about the cooled surface of the first crust, whose formation is
assumed in the meantime. From sedimentary beds he digs
out the shapes of creatures and plants that once lived, and he
marks off the layers in which they are found, and knows
their order, and their fragments, by these forms of buried
plants, shells, and skeletons.
The thickness of this outer shell ig measured along its
broken upturned edges, and it is calculated how long it may
have cost air, water, and ice—the gaseous fluid and solid
matters which now move about upon the earth's surface—to
grind down mountains at a given rate, and so produce, trans-
port, and arrange enough of mud, sand, gravel, and boulders
to make up sedimentary beds whose thickness is known.
14 GEOLOGY.
The time is estimated during which the formation of these
rocks lasted ; while plants grew, withered, died, fell, and accu-
mulated, and became peat beds and coal fields ; and while races
of creatures lived, died, and were buried and turned to stone.
Each step so gained seems to rest upon a pile of facts as
hard as the fossils themselves, each link in the cham is
firmly joined to its fellow, and geology has become a science.
But the rate of action may have varied in former times. The
whole chain of reasoning in this direction proves at least the
endurance and activity of one mechanical force, which still
acts towards the earth's centre.
The formation of sedimentary rocks under water, and the
transport of their materials from a higher to a lower level, are
facts which prove that the force which causes an apple to fall
has acted in the same direction ever since it first moved silt
:
whatever the rate of action may have been.
There is not much to be learned in this branch of geology
in Iceland. There are few sedimentary rocks, and very few
fossils ; but of the present activity of the weight-force which
must have acted upon the original crust of the earth, there
arc strikuig examples.
Falling water has not yet smoothed the shattered, wrinkled
surface of the lava ; the sediment which it washes off and
carries has not yet buried the rough outer crust ; but water
and ice are busily grinding igneous rocks to make others, and
they have gi'ound and Iniried many surfaces Avliich were
liarc and wrinkled at first.
There are few sedimentary rocks yet formed, but they are
forming everywhere upon igneous rocks, so there is much to
be learned about the past, from that which now takes place
in Iceland.
Kut gravitation is only onii of the nicchanical foi'ccs Mliich
GEOLOGY. 1
5
act at the earth's surface, and denudation and deposition arc
but one-half of geology.
At ever}'' step there is evidence of a force opposed to
gravitation, which has counteracted the downward movement
of sediment.
Tlie rain which washed dowTi materials enough to make
known beds of rock, would have washed all the land into the
sea long ago, and ocean-currents would have levelled the
bottom, had not land been raised above water by a force
sufficient to balance weight.
No apple could ever have fallen from a tree unless the
tree had first growTi ; water could not fall from clouds unless
it were first raised from the earth ; and stones could not fall
from mountams imless mountains were raised above the plain.
There could be no new sedimentary rocks unless mountains
were raised up as fast as they are ground down. If there has
been denudation, there has also been upheaval of the surface.
A second mechanical force is recognised in all modern
geology ; it has helped to model the outer crust of the earth,
and it is still veiy active in Iceland.
Heat helps to raise trees upon which apples grow, and the
ground on which they fall ; it acts upwards ; weight acts down-
wards, and the action of the earth's heat is seen in hot springs,
in volcanic eruptions, and in their work aU over Iceland.
Heat drives matter away from the centre, gravitation
drags it back.
Heat expands that which contracts when cold. Hot par-
ticles repel, cold ones attract, each other.
So heat raised up hills from which sediment falls ; it
shatters the earth's crust, and heaves up the broken frag-
ments, and thrusts up molten matter through openings so
made ; it raised up islands, and continents, and sea bottoms.
16 GEOLOGY.
and IB raising tlieni slowly still ; it luivls projectiles away
from the earth's surface, and it has }>rol)al)ly worked in the
same direction from the beginning.
And this mighty force is manifest within a week's sail of
the English coast ; where its activity is often forgotten till
some earthquake startles a sleeping town.
It seems impossible to visit Iceland and deny the im-
portance of internal heat as a geological agent, or to revisit
old haunts without recognising traces of extinct volcanic
action everywhere.
To ride over lava and gaze into craters is to gain fresh
knowledge, and learn new tool-marks. It is lilce visiting
some asteroid still warm from nature's laboratory, or to read
an early chapter in this world's history.
If any stones be preachers, surely these are eloquent.
Modern geology, then, treats of sedimentary and of igne-
ous rocks ; it recognises the activity of two mechanical forces,
which act in opposite directions, upward and downward,
from and towards a centre, in radiating and converging lines;
and Iceland is peculiarly fitted for studying the effects of both.
CHAPTER IV.
Visible objects of all kinds are known by their forms, by
their outlines, and by their internal stnicture, as well as by
coloiu", weight, and chemical composition : and form has this
advantage—it can be used as a test where others cannot be
applied.
Fossils, for example, are kno^\'n to have been plants, shells,
or bones, only because of their outward forms and internal
structure.
Organized forms indicate previous orderly movements, and
forces which produced them ; and the former activity of vital
and mechanical forces wliich now arrange the component
parts of living plants and animals is ])roved by form ; when
colour, weight, and chemical composition differ from those of
any living thing.
A knowledge of form is very important to the student of
extinct life.
So it is to students of oilier branches of geology.
The roimded shape of a pebble tells that a stone was rolled
till its angles were ground away, wherever it may now rest.
It is the same whether it is found in a stream, on a beach, in
a dry bed of loose gravel, or in a hard rock ; in a deep mine,
on a hill top, or buried in lava and ashes. The form of a
water-worn pebble of any material cannot well be mistaken
when the tool-mark is learned.
18 FORM.
All ice-grouud stone differs from one that is simply water-
worn.
There are many degrees of wearing, and many varieties
uf gravel and rolled stones ; and a skilled eye can distinguish
them.
The outlines tell i)art of the story ; internal structure tells
more of it.
A bit of water-worn bottle-glass, for instance, shews by its
structure that it is glass, which was artificially fused before it
was broken and rolled ; and its fracture, and the shape of
chambers in it, shew the direction in which heat, cold, and
human skill worked on tough glass while cooling and passing
from fluidity to hardness—from heat to coldness.
The glass may be a pebble in a sea-beach, so far as out-
ward form and position are concerned ; but internal structure
tells of the agency of man, and the action of heat and cold.
A jasper pebble, a bit of rolled obsidian or agate, or chal-
cedony, all of which break like glass, tell their history too.
Because of its outward form the stone has been rolled in
water, or ice-ground ; because of its internal structure it has
been heated to fusion, or perhaps to sublimation.
A broken bottle proves the former existence of men.
A scratched jasper pebble picked up in a field near the
(Jlyde means previous aqueous and glacial action where there
is now dry land ; and volcanic action at the place whence the
jasper was moved, before it became a pebble.
If a square block of jasper is found on some neighbouring
hill, it points to a possible place from which the pebble may
have started ; and if a vein of jasper is there found in situ, it
points out tlui site of an eruption, though there may be no
other record of it.
So a fragment of rolled briek, a slate ])i'bble, a linu'stone
FOR.Nr. 1
9
boiilder, and a bit of water-worn chalk, all have soinet]iiii<>- to
tell about forces which moved their particles.
Brick, though rolled, is easily known to be manufactured
brick, and it tells of a bed of clay somewhere on sliore, of
the labour of men, and of the action of a certain temperature
artificially applied to bake, without fusing, clay and sand. It
may be part of a delta now, Itut a ])rick is human work.
Slate, sandstone, and limestone, though rolled pebbles, tell
of the fracture and wearing of old beds of stone, of old denuda-
tion, and of deposition of silt to form new beds ; of some
action which changed sUt to stone, and of the breaking and
wearmg of these new beds. A pebble of metamorphic clay-
slate or marble may tell of a heat sufficient to bake witliout
fusing clay and lime ; and the materials tell of still uldcr
changes which formed and packed the minute fragments of
which the rocks consisted before they were baked hard.
The minutest visible grain of sand has a well-marked form
of its own, which tells a separate story.
But because these inorganic forms are as well marked as
those of plants, shells, and bones, they prove the past action
of mechanical forces as clearly as fossil shells do the action of
vital force.
The form of sand tells of motion in gas or tiuid as clearl}'
as a fish-bone records swimmmg in water ; and if sand and a
fish-bone are found together in the same place, they tell of
mechanical and vital forces acting much as they now do, and
in water, cold enough for fish to live in.
These separate inorganic forms, then, give much informa-
tion. But other forms tell their story w^th equal clearness.
A dry river delta tells as clearly of flowing water and
moving silt, as a shell does of the life and death of a living
creature. Tt is a water-mark.
20 FORM.
The minute delta which forms in a gutter during a shower,
is the result of flowing water ; so is the delta of the Nile, or the
moving delta which is creeping seawards, out of valleys about
Hecla ; or a fossil delta of any size, anywhere.
They differ, but their general form is the same ; and though
all big rivers were dried up, their former existence might be
known from their work, if but one flowing rill survived to
explain the way in which silt is packed at a river mouth.
Size is of no importance when movements and forces,
from which natural forms result, are known. The forces can
be inferred, if only the forms can be recognised.
Distance does not affect the test by outward form.
A tree is known though it grows on some inaccessible
cliff, and the vital vegetable force is inferred from the shape
of the tree.
A river delta is recognised from a hill-top, though it may
be far away.
If there were a large delta or river-bed upon the moon's
surface, it could be recognized there as easily as upon the
earth, for it has a conspicuous shape. It is a tool-mark.
No A is to be seen in the moon ; no forks and meanderings;
no V, iw Y, 110 S- There are no clouds there from which
rain can fall. There can neither be river nor tree, like earthly
trees and rivers, on the moon's surface, because familiar water
and air forms are absent.
lUit fixed, solid forms are there. It is loiown how
similar forms are produced in this world. So it is fair to
conclude that these hmar shapes, these O craters, also re-
sulted from a coml)ined action of heat, cold, and weight,
which did their work, and have now ceased to work on that
surface, though still active here.
Visible forms then, whether accessiljle or not, mean
FOEM. 21
previous movements, forces which caused them, and a tem-
perature sufficient to make the movements possible in the
material moved ; and similar natural forms, wherever they
may be, probably indicate similar action and af^ents, move-
ments and forces.
A delta is a water-mark ; a round crater a fire-mark ; and
every force which acts on a surface makes a tool-mark which
may be learned.
Each mark is like a letter. It has a form and a meaning,
l)ut only for those who learn to read.
To learn tlie character, the language, and the meaning of
inscriptions scidptured on the world by fire and frost is worth
some troulile. The geological alphabet—the first lesson to be
learned is—Form.
Fio. 4. An Eastern Symbol.
(IHAPTEE V
ATMOSPJIKRIC FORMS.
If ever there was a time when the solid surface of our world
was a newly-formed hot crust of stone, there must have been
an atmosphere about it, whatever its composition may have
l)een ; for our gases and fluids, air and water, only expand by
heat.
Movements in any gaseous shell must have resembled
those which now take place in the air from the action of heat,
cold, and gi^avitation, whatever the surface-temperature may
liave been ; and these atmospheric movements surely left
marks upon the solid crust from the beginning, because they
do now.
We have but to look above us to read some of the ancient
characters, which are and have been written in air, and to
learn their meaning. They are forms which reveal forces.
On a calm clear summer evening, after a thunder-shower,
when the setting sun is near the horizon, and the wind is
still, great masses of vapour often pile themselves up into
fantastic shapes which can only be seen in profile from a dis-
tance. They are easily drawn, and easily photographed.
Those to the eastward shine like snow in the evening sun-
light, and their shapes are clearly defined by light and
shadow. Those to the west are dark, or edged with brilliant
light, and their outlines cut shar])ly against the western sky.
Such clouds float steadily in tlic air ; they ai'c unaltered by
ATMOSPHERIC FORMS. 23
wind ; but when they are closely watched, they are seen to
cliange their forms at every instant.
There are magazines of force within them and without,
and changing forms point out the directions in which these
forces act.
Fig. 5. Diagram to shew the Growth of a Cloud.
The outlines were traced with a pencil on the ground glass of a camera oliscura, at .sliort
intervals, on a still, bright, hot evening.
Whoever has been enveloped in a mountain mist or a city
fog, knows that a cloud is commonly made up of minute
floating spheres of water, and these are moved aliout bv curroiits
of air, which are moved by some force.
24 ATMOSrilEUIC FOKMS.
These lit|uid splieres form at one place and disperse at
anotlier, according to the temperature and humidity of the air
about them ; but while they exist as drops in clouds they
collect and scatter, and move according to movements of the
air in which they float. Clouds are but fleeting characters
written in air ; but while they endure, they tell their story by
their form and by their movements. In order to see these
cloud-forms, and note changes which take place in them, they
must be far off, for clouds are of enormous bulk.
Fig. 6. "Ci'Mi'Li." Sketched from a Railway Tka
" Cumulus " clouds which form above London are higher
than the Alps, and, like Alps, they must be seen from a
distance before the (^ye can take them in. l)ut when they
are seen, under favouraltle circumstances, their movements
t(!ll of upward and downward currents in air—of expansion
ATMOSPHERIC FORMS. 25
and contraction in particular regions—of currents which are
analogous to those which move up and do^vn, and sideways, in
boiling water.
The lower edge of a distant cloud is often nearly a
straight line ; it is, in fact, the outline of the under side of
part of a dome of vapour, forming at a certain distance above
the earth's convex surface. The upper side is a heap of
great rolling raoimds which are constantly moving, swelling,
and shrmking ; rising and falling.
As warm currents of air rise through the vapour, rolling
clouds expand upwards, and change from roimded domes to
conical piles, and they flow over, and spread out upon the
higher layer of atmosphere through which they have been
Rising and Falling.
thrust, taking the shapes of momitains. So long as the sun
warms the cloud, or the earth beneath it, the upward expand-
ing motion continues. But when the sim disappears below the
horizon, the action grows less, and the movement is reversed.
The great boiling mass ceases to boU ; and settles down into
layers of even thickness. The " Ckimulus " becomes a "Stratus,"
26 AT.MOSl'HERIC F(DKMS.
or perhaps a cold wet current of air joins company witli tlie
cloud ; drops grow larger and heavier, and tlie whole fabric
tumbles dovm as a heavy shower. Then the " Cumulus " is a
" Mmbus," and the source of a flowing stream.
It is the same whether the growth and decay of such
clouds be watched from below or from above.
At sea there are no mountains to interfere with winds
which blow along the surface of the water ; so clouds, if they
change their form, alter because of forces within them.
Thus, off the Orkney Islands, with a strong north-westerly
breeze below, a distant mass of cloud on the southern horizon
was seen to move so as to indicate upward and downward
currents moving within the system of air which moved east-
wards along the sea. The clouds also shewed higher currents
moving in various directions. Steep conical peaks rose u])
out of flat clouds, which moved with the wind towards the
south-east ; more and more followed, rising till there were
rounded domes ; and these in their turn spread out and flowed
over, and broke up into detached masses, which drifted away
before upper currents. But the cloud spread to windward as
well as to leeward, eastward and westward from its own
centre of movement. It contained a radiating force.
When the upper sides of clouds are seen from a higli
mountain, the same forms appear.
From the top of the Rhigi, before sunrise, the Swiss lakes
may often be traced among the mountains. Each is covered
with a canopy of gi'ay cloud, beyond which there stretches a
frozen sea of mountain peaks cutting clearly against tlie rosy
sky. Distant detached hills to the northward stand u]>
like l)lue islands in lakes of gray mist, resting becalmed upon
wide plains. l^)ut when the sun rises motion begins. The
stratum of flat mist rises u]i, and heaves, and the gray plain
ATMoSrHKlilC FtMi.MS..
27
becomes a ti'oultled moving sea of rounded hills of va])onr, all
iH'iglit and shaded, and glittering in the morning light. As
the day wears on these rounded masses separate, break up,
and creep along the glens and hill-sides, rising as they go,
and by noon piles of rounded wliite cumidus clouds are
peering over the tops of the highest mountains, or cover-
ing them. Later in the day a traveller in a valley may find
himself drenched by heavy rain, while one upon a higher
level, or in the plain, is rejoicing in bright sunshine. But if
a wet pedestrian ascends an outlying moimtain like the Faul-
horn, he may pass through the falling shower into the cloud
of little floating drops, and so through gray mist into bright
sunshine and clear air. He may see the mist creeping up
the glens, because the sun is warming the hills, and rain is
condensing about the cold snow.
This engine is worked by fire and frost.
Shortly before sunset, on such a day, the lookout from
such a spot is very beautiful. The great snowy Alps glitter
in the bright light and clear frosty air, and seem to be close
at hand, till some distant thundering noise calls attention to
a few rolling grains of white dust. Then the real distance is
measiKed by the help of the grand somid of a falling aval-
anche, and the giants assume their true proportions.
The sea of cloud which surges against the momitain a few
hmidred feet below the peak, changes its shape at every
moment, as currents of air rise from glens below. The atmo-
sphere is all in motion, though there may be no general
horizontal movement at a particular spot and time.
But, when the sim sets, this local motion gradiially de-
creases, and cold moonbeams may play upon a quiet stagnant
silvery ocean of gray cloud resting becalmed upon liill and
plain, or creeping slowly upon still water.
28 ATMOSPHERIC FORMS.
We live in a sea of boiling air, and when its local move-
ments are made visible by clouds ; heat, cold, and gravitation
—radiating and converging forces—are seen at work in the
atmosphere.
Force is revealed by form.
On these forces and on these movements depend all atmo-
spheric changes and the science of meteorology, which treats
of them.
Fio. 8. Diagram of tiik Wind.s, by Likit. Matrv, U.S.N.
" Ab.stiacts of Meteorological Obsei-vations, etc.," edited by Liout.-Col. James.
London : Kyre and Spottiswoorle, ls,^.^.
CHArTEE VI.
METEOROLOGY.
The modem science of meteorology is founded upon upward
and downward movements in tlie whole atmosphere.
All storms have been traced to the movements of two
great currents in each hemisphere, which move like local cm'-
rents, and for the same reason. These are north-east or north
polar, south-west or equatorial, in the northern hemisphere;
south-east or south polar, north-west or equatorial, in the
southern hemisphere.
These great ciuTcnts are attributed to upward and down-
ward movements :—to the rising of light warm air near the
equator, and to the falling of heavier colder air at the poles.
Atmospheric movements then, whether large or small, general
or local, are attributed to the action of heat, cold, and weight.
But these simple movements are modified by the earth's
rotation and by change of weight.
A cold heavy current of air, moving southwards from the
north pole towards the equator, moves also towards the west
along the earth's surface. It appears as a north-easterly wind,
and it gathers heat and loses weight as it moves.
The equator is a larger circle than any other which is
described by a pohit on the earth's surface about the earth's
axis, and its parts move through a larger space in a given time.
A mass of air moving southward from a small revolvuig
circle near the north pole, and also moving eastward together
30 METEOROLOGY.
with that part of the eartli from wliich it sets (jut, lags behind
a point upon a larger circle which is nearer to the equator,
and is revolving eastward with greater speed.
So a north wind becomes a north-easter. A point on the
edge of a disc, ten miles from the North Pole, travels round the
axis, a distance of about sixty miles, in twenty-four hours : it
moves about as fast as a man walks : but a point on the disc,
whose edge is the Equator, moves eastwards more than a
thousand miles in an hour.
So a north wind moving southward over Scotland, and
eastward at the rate of Iceland, is passed l>y a Scotch tree as
a man walking eastward is passed by an express train. Apolar wind is a north-easter in the noi-thern hemisphere, and a
south-easter south of the Equator, because air lags behind
earth and sea when moving from smaller to larger circles. But
the polar wind does not blow furiously, because air is dragged
round and gams easterly motion as it gathers heat and loses
weight on its way to the Equator.
For a like reason, an equatorial calm, which sets off along
a meridian, and blows from large to small circles, becomes a
westerly wind. It plays the part of the railway train, and
overtakes the crawling tree which grows on the British Isles.
It bends trees, but does not always tear them up l)y the roots,
because it is held back by friction.
The warm light equatorial south wind 1)k)ws because air
expands, and loses weight, and rises ; it Ijccomes a south-west
wind because the earth turns eastwards.
The prevailing direction of the wind in the British Isles is
about south-west, and trees proclaim the fact by form.
In Wistman's Wood, near Dartmoor I'rison, at an eleva-
tion of about 1200 feet above the sea, a cvirious stuntt'd
sci'id* of gnarled oak, said to be " iis old as Uie creation,"
METEOKOLOGY. 31
shews that the prevailing wind has been south-west since the
oaks were acorns.
The strange old trees stretch out their twisted, tangled,
moss-grown, fem-elad arms towards the north-east, and hend
their Ik .ary trunks in tlie same direction, as if seeking shelter.
But on the hill above them, a
great boulder, as big as a house,
proves that some force stronger
than the wind has acted in the
contrary direction, toivards the
south-west. The stone has been
pushed from its place, and rests
on the hill-side.
^Vllerever a tree gTows on
the western coast of Ireland it
bows its head to the noi-th-east.
Every exposed Welsh tree
bends towards the dawm.
Every exposed tree on the west coast of Scotlaird seems to
be driven by a fimous wind on the calmest day. About
Edinburgh it is the same. On the east coast, on North
Berwick Law, an old thorn tree streams towards the north-
east, and every tree in that neighbourhood that dares to peep
over a wall, straightway assumes the form of an old broom,
and points eastward.
At Dalwhumy there is something almost ludicrous in
the stormy look of a whole wood of fir trees which point their
fingers do-^Ti Strathspey, and bend their trmiks as if yielding
to a furious gale.
In Scotch islands, at least as far noi-th as Orkney, it is still
the same. Trees are vanes, and no other wind-gauge is
wanted to shew that the atmosphere has a liabit of rushing
Fui. 9. Old Trees and Boi'lders.
Wistman's 'Wood, Dartiuo(jr.
32 METEOKOLOGY.
past the British Isles from west to east on its way north. If
tlie true bearings of exposed trees were taken and mapped, a
wind chart might be added to the physical atlas.
But though there are prevailing winds, and a general
atmospheric system of movement ; the easterly and westerly,
lieavy and light, cold and warm, polar and equatorial streams,
which cross meridians in travelling north and south, one above
the other;get entangled and whirl round as rotatory storms.
On one side of the Equator the storms revolve one way, on the
other they whirl in the opposite direction, as whirlpools do
when a stream flows into stiQ water ; or when streams cross
or meet ; under bridges and behind posts.
The meteorological department of the Board of Trade have
a hard task, though an able leader, when they try to forecast
winds. But for all that, the strongest wind that presses on
British trees goes towards the north-east.
At places where winds meet and mingle, currents flowing
in opposite directions neutralize and roll over, and whirl about
each other ; and so whirlwinds, circular storms, calms, and
partial winds of every strength and direction, occur ; though
light and lieavy currents keep their places, and surface
winds are almost constant in some latitudes.
When opposite currents are flowing, clouds betray them
by form, and they are commonly seen.
When a strong south-wester is driving in a flock of
detached clouds from the sea, the clouds transform themselves
as they fly.
The wind drags along the surface.
The under side of the cloud drags also and stretches Ijack-
wards, but the upper side is pushed forwards and rolls over
like a curling wave. There may be a strong breeze below,
but a gale higher up ; and liiglier still clouds may l)e spread
METRdKOLOOY. 33
uut ou calm ripple-inarkcd plains, where currents are passing
each other, and rolling up the clouds between them into
mackerel skv.
All these forms do but indicate movements which result
from the action of two forces, one radiating from a centre, the
other converging towards it ; and the science of meteorology
is foimded upon these two forces and on their action, above
the earth's surface, in the air.
Air is constantly moving up, and down, and sideways,
above water and solid ground. Meteorology attempts to ex-
plain the movements, and the moving forces are heat and
weight.
The main facts were known to men when the first chapter
of Ecclesiastes was written, as Maury points out in his
WTitings.
" 5. The smi also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and
hasteth to his place where he arose.
" 6. Tlie wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about
unto the north : it whirleth about continually ; and the wand
returneth again according to his circuits.
D
34 METEOllOLOGY.
" 7. AH the rivers riui into the sea;yet the sea is not fiill
:
unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they
return auain."
JiHfiM^yFii; 11. DiAciiAM (IF Drauchts IN A Room.
Section of a large room, shewing the positions and mean amount of deflection of silk
vanes ; teini>erature shewn by thermometers ; force of upward current at the mantelpiece
in grains per square foot ; moving fumes ; balloon ; radiation from fire ; and the direction
in which air circulated under these conditions.
From the "Beport on Wanning and Ventilation of Dwellings," 320, Scss. 2, 1807.
CHAriEIi VII.
A CAUSE is found by working up stream—by creeping along
any one spoke of a wheel towards the centre. The effects of
a kno-^Ti caiLse are got at by working the other way. Starting
from cloud-forms, heat is reached. If heat be a mechanical
power which moves the atmosphere, forms like clouds shoidd
be found at the outer end of shorter spokes in the same wheel.
If a principle be established, many phenomena can be
traced to it. In meteorology, as in aU sciences, a residt is
reached by observation of facts, but experiment is the final
test of theory, however formed.
A power may be used when found.
If great and small atmospheric currents flow, for the
reasons given, and heat and gra\dtation are radiating and
converging forces by which air is moved, then any quantity
of air, great or small, ought to be moved in the same way and
liy the same forces. And so it is wherever the experiment is
tried.
Air in a conserv^atory may be taken to represent an atmo-
sphere. Tlie ground is warm, the roof is cold, and the general
mass of air cannot escape beyond certain limits.
If one part of the floor is hotter than the rest, cold cur-
rents converge, and faU and flow towards that spot, absorb heat
there, and rise like warm fountains to the roof. Thence warm
36 AIH.
currents radiate in all directions, and flow towards the cold
sides of the building, away from the warm region, and as they
move above, they part with the heat which they acquired
below. The smoke of a few charges of gunpowder, burned
upon the floor of a hot-house, makes the cuiTcnts visible, and
the experiment always gives a like result, because it is
founded upon a general law which affects air.
Air expands and rises when heated, contracts and falls
when cooled, and moves sideways to find its oa^ii level, or
escape pressure.
Air within a cottage, with a fire on the floor, obeys the
law, and clouds of peat-smoke float overhead, and roll in
emulation of clouds in the sky, while small storms blow
amongst the plenishing on the clay floor. There is good fresh
air in poor huts.
Air in a cave moves in the very same way for the same
reason. When a fire is lighted at the extreme end, smoke
rises to the cold roof, but it speedily cools and falls again, and
returns along the cold floor to the fire, which set air and
carbon in motion. It takes some time for heat to force smoke
to the cave's mouth, because the hot air which carries it is
cooled by cold air in the cave. So revolving systems of
radiating and converging currents move in opposite directions,
above and below ; while men near the fire sneeze and cough,
and are lost in clouds of rolling peat-reek. But as the air of
the cave warms, the system moving within it enlarges its
sphere. The smoke gets nearer and nearer to the door, and
finally two regular currents are established. A warm stream
flows outwards along the roof, bearing smoke and glowing in
the firelight ; and a cold chilly draught of pure, clear, fresh
air creeps along the floor towards the bivouac. Because they
breathe pure air, cottagers, gipsies, and travellers seldom wheeze.
AiiJ. 37
A sail or some other screen makes all snug, and then a
wanderer may stretch himself at ease on his bed of heather or
leaves, and watch forms in the smoke, and rapid steady
movements, which fire, kintUed by a spark, keeps up hi air, so
long as fire gives off heat-force.
It is the same in a cubic foot of air confined luider a glass
shade. The movements may be seen by the help of smoke ; or
delicate vanes made with gold leaf, will point towards the fire
and the window, the hottest and coldest spots whicli can in-
fluence air in a room.
Polar and equatorial currents are found under a glass
shade when they are sought, and they blow even in close
cellars.
Perhaps the largest mass of air enclosed artificially is at
the Sydenham Crystal Palace, and there draughts and warm
currents are in proportion to the size of the building.
At one end a high temperature is preserved for the bene-
fit of tropical plants, birds, and fish, but the rest of the
buildmg is kept cool.
According to theory, there should be a warm moist cur-
rent flowing along the roof from the warm tropical regions,
and a cold dry current flowing along the floor towards them;
but if there were, the temperature within would be too evenly
spread by the air. To keep temperature off the balance, the
currents were arrested, but they assert their presence never-
theless, and shew pressure by form.
The tropic which divided the torrid zone of the Crystal
Palace from more temperate regions was at first a great canvas
screen, and its form betrayed the invisible forces which pressed
upon it It bulged ou.twards cthove, like the topsail of a big
ship, and inwards heloio like the mainsail of a first-rate taken
aback. The imprisoned breezes could have driven big ships
38
and large balloons, waves and clouds, east and west, for the
sails tugged hard above and below.
A visitor passing the tropics below, passed the door
with a cohl fair wind behind him, but one who attempted
to enter by the upper gallery was met by a strong, damp,
warm, head wind. Heat expanded the air, weight squeezed
it, and air pushed the canvas, two ways at once.
Thermometers shewed that the lower current was cold
and dry, but the upper warm and moist, and the outer glass
in the tropical region streamed and dripped with condensed
vapour, which light hot expanded air had absorbed.
So, in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, are tropical and
polar currents, and local wmds ; evaporation and condensa-
tion ; as well as specimens, models, and copies of most of the
world's productions, old and new, living and dead.
The principle on which these currents of air move is
worth learning, for it may be turned to practical use.
Without oxygen any animal dies ; without fresh air con-
stantly supplied it suffers for want of oxygen ; and these suffer-
ings are in proportion to the absence of oxygen from the air
which is breathed, or to the presence of somethmg hurtful in
it. Men die for want of air under water. That they often
suffer in dwellings for want of fresh air is notorious ; but few
ever think why they suffer in mines, or in rooms. Every
breath drawn by every living creature is a chemical opera-
tion, in performing which oxygen is taken away from nitro-
gen, and carbonic acid added to it. Within a given time a
set of lungs will absorb so nuich of the oxygen in a certain
limited cpiantity of air, as to leave a spoiled mixture of air,
nitrogen, carbonic acid, and e.\]ialations ; a mixture which stops
the play of lungs, stills the beating of hearts, and cpienches
fire as effectually as a like volume of water.
AIR. 39
If any one is cruel enough to try the experiment, let him
put a mouse on a plate under a tumbler, oil the edge of the
glass, andwatch the result. The mouse, imless relieved, will cer-
tainly drown himself in his own l)reatli. But men and women,
for want of knowledge, voluntarily subject themselves every
day to sufferings which are the same in kmd, though less
in degree. The evil is glaring, and the residts are but too
well known ; the dif&cidty is to find out the best remedy, and
to persuade the patients to take it. Anything is blamed
rather than invisible air, and every smoke doctor and engineer
has a special nostrum of his own for keeping out " draughts,"
while persuading fresh air to come where it can be breathed.
The plan is called by a long name, and when tried it often
fails. Surely it is wisest to teach that fresh air is neces-
sary, and foul air hurtful ; to shew why air moves, and leave
men to apply the knowledge, and help themselves. Air
driven by heat moves exactly as water does in a boiling
kettle. Hot air, or hot water, is lighter, bulk for bulk, than
cold air or cold water, at a certain pressure ; and the cold
hea\'y fluid will flow towards the hottest place, and the warmligliter fluid wiU. flow from it as certainly as winds blow and
rivers flow, and for the same reason.
There is nothing simpler than "ventilation," if the principle
is kno\\Ti and the law of nature obeyed
Air under the earth obeys the same laws which govern air
in the free atmosphere.
In coal muies ventilation is carried out artificially, but
according to natural laws, by heating air in one shaft, and
letting cold air sink do^^m another ; or l)y dividing a single
shaft, and lighting a fire on one side. By partitions, doors,
screens, and brattices, the downward current, set up by
gravitation, is made to flow where it is wanted, to dilute and
40 AIK.
cany oft' noxious gases, and supply the means of existence to
miners, horses, lamps, and tires, which cannot breathe and
burn without oxygen. In some mines air is thus moved a
distance of thirty miles, at a steady rate, and more heat moves
it faster. A ton of coals burned in a day boils up a breeze.
Burned in an hour, the fuel drives an upward gale which
blows out candles in rushing down to the furnace.
The system is good, and it only fails when ill carried out,
or when the machinery breaks down.
In cold metalliferous mines, driven into hill-sides, and out
at the top, like those of Yorkshire ; where the so-called system
of natural ventilation prevails ; currents of air move different
ways under ground when the outer air is in different states of
lieat and pressure.
Changes in weight, A\'hich move mercury in a barometer,
also move columns of cold air shut up in vertical shafts.
Changes of temperature, which affect fluids in a ther-
mometer and in the free atmosphere, also affect air shut up
in big tubes and chambers of rock.
Shafts and levels, pits and galleries, mines and chimneys,
are but barometers and thermometers on a large scale.
So it happens that when air within one of these mines is
colder and heavier than the air outside, a current flows along
the adit and out into the glen below, as water does ; and it
draws air down into shafts at the hill-top. Because the air
within is heavy and rims out, the upper air falls in after it to
fill the void.
When the air outside is cold and heavy, and the air
within warmer and lighter, the current is reversed. Liglit air
rises out of the highest shaft like smoke from a chimney,
while heavy air flows in below, as water would if the glens
were flooded.
A IE. 41
In either case, there is sufficiinit inovenient to change air
in most parts of a mine, with openings at high and low levels.
If barometric pressure is removed outside, the air witliin
expands, and so escapes till tlie balance of pressure is
restored. If there be noxious gas in chinks in rock, or in
coal, it escapes most when the barometer is low.
If pressure is added, the confined air is compressed, and
the outer air enters till the vacant space is fUled.
When a strong wind is blowing outside, it acts upon air
within a mine, sucking it out of a shaft as the current passes
over it ; and driving it in when the wind blows upon the
entrance to a level
But in certain states of pressure and temperature there
must be stagnation in a mine, as there are calms at the sur-
face, and on these occasions men are driven from their work.
When no one is able to predict which way the cun-ent will
flow at any time or place, it is impossible to direct it.
Thus it happens that close ends aboimd in nooks and
corners of mines, in spite of "windy kings," " windylators,"
" fans," and " water-blasts ; " engines which substitute mus-
cular force, water and steam power, for nature's power—heat.
Men are often driven from their work and choked out of
mines for days by changes in the weather, when a fire would
remedy the evil ; though strong fires are burning to waste
beside most mines. "Lead miners are as good as barometers"
for their neighbours, but nevertheless they and their class gene-
rally seem to be convinced that " weather ventilation " is the
best of systems for them, and that fires are only fitted for
coal mines where fuel is cheap.
In deep hot mines like those of Idria and Cornwall, where
the natural heat of the earth is felt—at a depth of 1800 feet
below the surface—in hot lodes, and hot rocks, where tem-
42 AIR.
perature rises to 90° and 100°—tliere is true "natural venti-
lation," which only needs direction to secure good air. But
even in such mines men often trust to nature while Avorking
against natural laws.
In one hot Cornish mine everything went WTong at " the
end," tin a great storm made a commotion in the atmosphere,
which reached the hot levels below. The currents changed,
and since that time they have constantly and steadily followed
their own paths, and all goes well. The men suffer from heat,
but they breathe good air—for the natural heat of the earth
ventilates the mine.*
In all cold mines where atmospheric ventilation prevails,
there are " close ends," " poor air," " cold damp," " carbonic
acid," and other evils, which cause sickness and excessive
mortality, while engine fires are burning to waste at the
surface near most of them.
" Levels" which are open at one end and closed at the other,
where work is going on, ventilate themselves, though slowly
and imperfectly, on the general principle. They are like long-
low caves, 7 feet high and sometimes 300 feet long, and men
and candles heat the inner end. There is consequently a
light warm column of air at one end, six or seven feet high,
whUe at the other is an equal column of colder and heavier
air, which presses upon and displaces the other. Heat forces
out a wedge of air along the roof, while weight forces in a
wedge of purer air along the floor. When a shot has been
fired, the smoke is seen rolling slowly out m thick volumes
along the roof, while there is little or none below. In an
hour or in many hours the smoke is gone, and in time it wiU
be found rising out of some shaft, if followed. But smoke
often hangs for days in close ends, because men and candles
are weak caloric engines.
* Tliis .staii'iiiciil was hkkIc liy a iiiiniii^' captain.
AIR. 43
If a regular and constant current, however slow, passed
througli a mine, down one shaft and up another, whicli would
be the case if an upcast shaft were joined to an engine furnace-
door ; then brattices and trap-doors would tiirn the current
into any corner, however distant, and so miners would suffer
less from bad air if they used power which they throw away.
In dwelling-houses it is the same. Heat and weight cause
movement in air every^vhere, but the simple law is often for-
gotten, unknown, or misimderstood. So it happens that con-
trivances meant to promote ventilation impede movement in air.
To warm a room is easy. Every savage who kindles fire
knows the art. It is only requisite to burn enough of fuel to
warm a hut ; and a leaky hut ventilates itself.
Fuel bu^rned on the floor of a cave or hut, in an open
fire-place or a closed stove, in a mine, a lamp, or candle, or
in any other contrivance, is a source of heat, and that is
power which may be used or wasted.
The fire radiates directly to all places to which straight
lines can be drawn from it ; indirectly wherever rays of heat
can be reflected or refracted, and the radiated heat is absorbed
and given off hj everything within its reach, in proportion to
the supply. Tlie fire is to things in a room what the sun is
to the outer world ; but a room is a small world, and, unlike
a hut, it is nearly air-tight.
To change the air in dwellings with chinmeys and doors,
or in mines, it is only necessary to put right fires in right
places, and let air follow its natural course. To ventilate close
rooms air-holes must first be made.
Fire acts mechanically by expanding air about it, and
every separate object which is warmed by radiant heat and is
warmer than air in contact with it, gives heat to air, both by
contact and by radiation ; expands it, and so moves it. Cur-
44 AlK.
rents, like those whieli are caused by natural heat in the
atmosphere, circulate in dwellings because heat is set free,
reflected, and refracted. But fresh air cannot get in if
" draughts" are kept out.
There is a general system of currents which radiate up-
wards, away from the hottest place in a room—be it fire, or
stove, or heated pipe—and which converge downwards and
move towards it, after the spreading currents have carried
heat to the coldest places, and have left it there. There are
miniature radiating and converging equatorial and polar cur-
rents hi every room, as in every mine, and ventilators should
use them.
There are small local systems which circulate about
every candle, or heated chair or footstool, stove, or living
creature, in a human dwelling, mine, or other closed space.
These are as eddy winds, land and sea breezes, domestic whirl-
winds, and family storms ; and their progress may be watched
in graceful curves which form in clouds rising from peat fires,
pastiles, tobacco pipes, newly extinguished candles, matches,
powder, steaming tea-cups, or the kettle.
To warm and ventilate, it is only necessary to burn fuel,
and direct the currents of air, which must move somewhere.
Let the window of a warm room be partially opened above
and below, and let threads, ribbons, grass, feathers, or any
other light material, he hung in the openings to act as vanes.
It will be shewn that light air is escaping above, with a charge
of heat taken from things in the room ; that heavy air is enter-
ing Ijelow to be warmed, and that the air in the room is re-
volving as a current of water eddies in a bight. It is the case
of the muie in a hill.
If the same thing is tried in a room colder than the outer
air, heavy cold air flows down and i'alls out ol' the window,
AIR. 45
as water niiglit do ; and liglit warm air enters the window
above, deposits a freight of heat in the room, and then follows
the outward stream. In either case the movement goes on till
the mechanical force is expended, till the xinef|ual weights
are balanced, and pressure and temperature the same.
A living being is a source of heat, and a cause of move-
ment in the air of a room, a mine, or any closed or open
space. The warm breath and natural heat of a man who enters
a cold room and takes up a position in it, moves air and cob-
webs on the ceiling, at a distance of 30 feet, in about a minute.
A miner moves the air in which he works ; a mouse moves
air imder a glass shade ; so does a rabbit in his hole.
The smell of a newly-lighted cigar moves about 30 feet
in two minutes in cold air in a room ; but the rate of
motion depends upon the coldness of the room, and the
energy of the smoker. The sun and a pipe are different
sources of heat and power, and cun-ents of air flow when
power acts, whatever the source of it may be. But a man
and a candle work on air in a large mine, as a sailor's pipe
does on a calm at sea.
An elastic balloon filled with a light gas, and carefully
weighted, so as barely to rest on a table, expands and ascends
when placed on the floor opposite to the fire. It is like a
cloud warmed by the sun. It moves along the ceiling, away
from the fire, towards a window, falls where it cools, and drifts
back towards the fire along the floor. It rises because it
expands ; it expands because it is warmed ; and it follows the
stream of air, and shews its rate and direction. It does not
move of its ovni accord, neither do the currents which move
it. They move because they are expanded and compressed,
and go fast or slow in proportion to the heat used to move
their weight.
46 AIR.
Tlie smoke of a lamp, where it blackens a ceiling, shews
the course of cuiTents of air by forms in which carbon is
arranged. The forms are tool-marks, and the tool is air.
Ice forming on a window, and hoar i'rost under a door,
take the shape of streams of air moving in a room and enter-
ing a house.
Silk vanes, cobwebs, or any light substances hung about
any closed space, shew currents of air by form as clouds do.
Air escapes from the garret windows of a warm house, but
enters the cellar door. The cause is still the same.
There is pressure where currents are impeded, as shewn by
the skreen at the Crystal Palace. There is outward heat-
pressure on a garret window when closed ; inward weight-
pressure on the lowest door, and cold air will open the door
and enter, if the latch be turned on a winter's day.
Wlien pressure is greater than resistance, as when a house
burns, air, urged by strong heat and weight, shews more
power ; upper windows burst outwards, lower windows are
crushed in, and hard glass is shattered by invisible gas.
Imprisoned air, aided by more heat, bursts iron in a mould.
The atmosphere and weight crush iron boilers when water
inside is deserted by heat, and steam loses the ally, without
whose aid steam is ice.
And the atmosphere, when urged by the sun, and by
the earth's gravity and rotation, sometimes becomes a hurri-
cane which sweeps away trees and houses in its resistless
course.
So heat and weight are strong useful powers;good ser-
vants if bad masters ; and they work with air.
Some years ago an experiment on a very large scale was
made in a coal-mine below the sea-level, and it affected gases
of very different specific gravities.
AIR. 47
A northern mine in full work is a strange bnsy scene.
At the pit-mouth fires flare and smoke ; steam-engines
pant, and puif, and wheeze ; chains clank, wheels rattle, and
waggon-loads of coals rise up, rush from the pit, and crash
dowTi shoots into railway trains. Tliere is a fearful din.
IVIen step on a smoky platform, and down they go like
-Don Giovanni and the commandatore. Down they sink
rapidly ; and if imused to falling, their hearts seem to
rise.
If the pit be an upcast, the smoke is dense, and the air
grows hot, and hotter, and hotter still, as the skip slides down
the cliimney. It passes the fmiiace vent, the air clears, and
the journey ends ; it may be, far below the sea-leveL
At the bottom of the pit there is bustle and busy work.
Shouting and gi-muing, black, half-naked urchins, push w^ag-
gons of coals rattling over iron plates, and up they go like a
puff of smoke. Sleek steaming ponies, who never see day-
light, trot in with trains of waggons from distant ends;grimy
postilions with lamps in their hands ride in from distant sta-
tions, with arms clasped about the necks of their steeds, and
heads bent low to avoid the roof. Black railway guards
crouch in their trains and grin, and clouds roll from every
open mouth and nostril.
The boys always ride home from their work if they can,
and sometimes they ride races.
Lights flit about, gather, and disperse. Half-seen forms,
—a man's head and hands, or half a face ; a tobacco-pipe
smoking itself ; horees' heads with glittering eyes and smoking
nostrils, with a figure of f\in grinning out from under the
mane ; all the fancies of Teniers, in his wildest mood, seem
to float about in the darkness.
A cluster of these visions and their lights gather and
48 AIR.
grasp a bar ; three raps are lieard, and they fly smilhig \\\)
the chimney after the coals and the smoke.
At the end where the work goes on, these gnomes an;
constantly burrowing on, and bringing down their roof. The
coal foundation is picked out ; and the upper coal, the old
sandstone flags, and the shales above—the arched roofs of
this vault—with all their loads, begin to yield and split with
a strange ominous noise. " Crick." Wooden props shoved
in feel the load, and they too complam and creak. Wlien the
full strain comes on them t]iey are crushed and riven to
splinters, and the roof " roars like cannons when it is coming
down."
A spoke in the world's wdieel is cut through and mended
witli sticks ; the scaffold which supported the flat arch is dug
away, so the arch comes down and the sticks are crushed.
With his head touching the roof, and his feet on the floor
of a mine, a collier stands under a stone column it may be
2000 feet high. A weight sufficient to squeeze him as flat as
a fossil fish is coming down, and he hears it coming, but he
works on and smokes placidly under the lee of his prop,
rejoicing to see weight help him to quarry coals.
That is working according to natural laws. That is using
a power which has been found. That is one use of weight.
Some years ago, the workings of two such coal-mines
near Newcastle were purposely joined. Each imderground
world had its own atmosphere, with its system of currents. It
is important to keep the stream moving, to make it move along
the face where men work, and to know the way the stream
flows, in order to be able to guide it. So these black gnomes,
with shining oil stars on their foreheads, and gleaming teetli
and eyes, argued keenly in their sej)arate burrows. They
are a shrewd, knowing race these nortliern Teutonic gnomes;
AIR. 49
they know that fire-damp or clioke-Jamp may blow tliem to
bits, or drown them if their atmospheric systems go ^\T.-ong.
They know their own interests, and generally know how to
secure them. So they held high council about their winds,
when their systems were approaching each other.
The pits were miles apart, Ijut a thm block of coal divided
the workings at last.
On either side stood an anxious man reading the weight-
power that pressed on the coal, from the dial-plate of an
aneroid barometer. That was another use for weight.
A blow demolished the wall, and the mines were success-
fully joined. Weight turned the scale again. The lightest
column went up, the heaviest came down. The trade wind
blew towards the l^arometer which shewed least pressure,
away from that which shewed most, by standing liighest ; and
the coal wall being gone, the barometers marked the same
pressure at the same level, and regular circulation went on.
There was less pressure in one mine, because there was
more heat ; and the colliers poked their fires, and rejoiced in
fresh air, and scorned danger overcome.
They had got the mastery over weight and heat ; and the
giants and the gnomes now work amicably together in their
united dens under the earth.
In deep cold metal mines, where a few narrow pits all
open about the same level, stagnation is the rule. So long
as air inside the stone bottle with the slender necks is colder
than air outside, it is heavier. There is no natural power
applied to lift it, and it cannot flow out for want of fall.
Like water collected in an old working, the cold, heavy
mine air is a foul deep stagnant pool, which evaporates a
little, overflows now and then, and swings about in its rocky
bed ; but it never changes like water in a river pool, because
E
50
there is no stream tiowiiig tliroiigli it. Sucli a mine is a con-
trast to one through 'whicli air moves constantly.
On a fine, warm, breezy, bright, simny day, witli tlie sweet
breath of fields and heather hills in his nostrils, a pedestrian
in search of information conies to a trap-door and a hole like
a draw-well. Odours of bilge water and rotten eggs, mildew
and worse things, rise when the trap is lifted, and they con-
trast abominably with the delicate perfume of beans and
hedge-rows. The pool moves when it is stirred ; but when
left to its own devices, the most delicate tests often fail to
shew any movement at a pit mouth. Cobwebs, paper, silk,
soap-bubbles, and smoke, which shew movement in the
stillest room, all indicate repose at the neck of the bottle,
for the unsavoury air stagnates in the cold dumb well which
holds it.
If the average temperature inside be G0°, and outside 61°,
there is nothing to lift the lowest stratum.
There is no rattle, no din, no movement here. A dull
sleepy creaking sound comes faintly in from a big water-
wheel, which is slowly turning and pumping water from a
neighbouring hole. The only cheery sound about the place
is the rattle of hammers and stones, where boys and girls
and strong-armed women are smashing and washing ore in
sunlight and fresh air. Like bees they sing as they work
cheerily. Their cheeks are ruddy, and their bright eyes
dance with fun ; but down in the dark well is sickness,
silence, and gloom.
A distant sound is heard below ; the yellow glimmer of
a candle shines out of the black earth ; hard breathing
approaches, and the regular beat of thick-soled boots on
iron staves comes slowly ticking up the pit, like the
beating of a great clock. A mud-coloured man appears at
last, and he stares amazed at the stranger perched at the
mouth of his den ; seated on a sollar, and watcliing cobwebs
with a pipe in his cheek. The miner may be blue, or yellow,
green, brown, orange, or almost red, but he is sure to he gaunt
and pale-faced. His hair and brow are wet with toil ; his eyes
blink like those of an owl in daylight ; he wdieezes, and he
looks fairly blown. With scarce a word of greeting, he stares
and passes on to the changing house ; and the cobweb which
he disturbed settles like a pendulum at Zero once more.
A\Qien a lot of miners who work in such mines gather
amongst other folk, they are as easily distinguislied as
blanched celery from green leaves.
When visitors go down, guides and strangers dressed in
their worst, each armed with a vile tallow dip, stuck in a ball
of clay, cluster about the well, which is called the " foot way,"
and one after another they vanish from the upper air.
The TICK : tick : tick : of many feet wakes up echo, and hot
breath stirs the air. For the height of a town-church, down
they go into the darkness, and their steaming breath rises up
like blue smoke. When daylight fails, a halt is called, and
candles are lit on the ladders.
This travelling is, to say the least, uncomfortable. A man
in the middle has to watch that he may not tread on the
fingers next below him, and to look out for his own knuckles
;
to hold the sharp, cold, greasy, gritty iron rounds, and the
candlestick of soft wet clay, so as to hold the grip M'ithout
losing the light, or singeing his nose with the candle. He has
to feel for his footing, watch for damaged or missing rounds,
and generally keep his \Adts bright ; for there may be fifty
fathoms of sheer open depth at his elbow, and nothing earthly
to save him if he slips or stumbles in this " foot-way."
The Col de Geant in the Alps, Eriks Jokull in Iceland,
52 AIK.
a long (lay after the deer, and a day's march witli a heavy
pack, are easy journeys to a mining scramble through dirt,
darkness, and foul air.
Like a train of Irish hodmen, slipping down from a
London house, down goes the procession ; and those who are
unused to the work find it hard labour. The way into this
Avernus is not a facile descent. In half an hour, or an hour
and a half, according to pace and distance, a journey whicli
costs minutes and seconds in a coal-mine, ends at the bottom
of the mine where machinery is unknown. It is the goat's
track against tlie railway ; the fox's mine against the work
of human brains. It is the old story of brute force and skill,
giants against dwarfs ; and the clever dwarfs who circumvent
the giants best get most work out of them in mines as else-
where.
On the floor of a coal-mine the footing is sure. In the
other, passages are made at different levels, and they are full
of pitfalls, and uneven in height and ^vidth. Tramping and
splashing through mud and mire, over hard rock and piles
of rubbish, the train moves off. When the level is reached, a
miner leads, another brings up the rear, and strangers file off
and keep their places as best they can.
" Shoot :" cries the leader, and ducks his head. The next
finds the edge of a sharp ironshod trough at the level of his
eyes, dives under it in his turn and passes the word ;" shoot."
It is tlie place where ore is shot down from uj^per levels into
waggons, and it is a trap to break the heads of the unwary.
" Sump :
" cries the leader, and the follower, with his candle
flickering in his eyes, finds that he stands on a single plank,
or a narrow ledge of stone, above a black abyss. In daylight,
heads are apt to swim above such depths, in the dark that
feeling is absent ; so each in turn passes the bridge and the
AIK. 53
word :" SUMP." It is the place where ore is sent down, or the
top of an air chimney, or the nioutli of a pit dug into the vein.
"Deads:" and the leader proves his descent from some
burrowing ancestor, perhaps a badger, a rabbit, or a rat, by
crawling up a heap of rusty stones, wriggling through a long
hole, and sliding down head foremost into the passage beyond.
He looks very picturesque. The soles of his boots disappear
at last, and one by one the procession struggle through and
take the colour of the mine from its roof and sides. Andso for half a mile, or a mile or more, it is "heads!" " shoot!"
"sump!" "deads!" splash, tramp; and by that time all hands
are wet, hot, greasy, snioky^ and muddy. The smallest hole
in an air-way is the measure of the current which can pass,
so deads throttle the mine.
Having driven two long caves, one above the other, so far
that candles will no longer burn at the ends, and men can
hardly breathe, the next step in metal-mining is to "rise" and
"sink" and join the caves ; to make a passage for air to move
through if nature so wills. It is easier to rise than sink, for
loose stones fall when blo^^^l out of the roof, biit as men rise
into the rock, smoke, breath, hot air, and light exhalations
rise with them. Thermometers rise also to 70° and 80°
though water in the level and the rock may be at 60° or 64°.
To get up to the top of a rise " stemples" are often fixed for
steps. These are bars of wood on either side, and to mount
is like climbing a chimney. The stones which are quarried
at the top are thrown down and gather in a conical heap
below. So the place is well called " a close end."
In order to get oxygen into this black hole, a small boy,
whose life, like Mr. Mantelini's, is one perpetual grind, is
stationed at some place where the air is thought fit for use.
With a circular fan and a leaky tube, or with a thing like a
54 All;.
iiiaguified squirt ; l)y the nmscular force of a young male
caloric engine, with the idle nature of a hoy, some air of
some sort is driven to the end, and half-choked men and
.ATiNO Engines, coniiiionly used ;it cl
The only air engine found working in one big mine was a
jjiston in a rough deal box ; a panting, short-armed little boy
})ulled and pushed at the cross handle. The air was close
where he worked, and the squirt and its pipes leaked. Along way oft', at the "end," a very faint puff, which gently
bent the flame of a candle for a moment, was the sole result
of each violent effort. Three men and three candles were
si)oiling air thick with old powder smoke, and the place was
suffocating ; for the boy himself consumed more air than he
supplied. He could have blown a candle out with his mouth,
he could not with the air-pump. The heat of the men and
their lights moved more air than tliis engine of one boy power.
All;. 55
Tlie collier laddit; who does like work has a lamp and a
hook ; he sits beside a door with a string in his hand, and
his duty is to open the door when any one passes ; to keep
it shut and keep his own eyes open at other times. One
urchin guides a strong gale intelligently, the other drives still
air stupidly by weak brute force.
The ventilating boy-engine passed, the leader dives into a
rolling cloud of thick foetid smoke. His candle turns into
a nebulous haze, his legs are seen wading alone in clear air
after his head has disappeared in smoke, but both are found
together at the end. With hands and feet on either side of
the rise, in the graceful posture of a split crow% or a wild cat
nailed on a kennel door ; through showers of dust and falling
stones, up sprawl guides and followers with many a puff and
cramp till they crowd a shaky platform at the top of the rise.
It is the place where men work for hours, days, and months.
One effect of these close ends on one who is unused to
them is to cause perspiration to break out freely while
standing still, or sitting quietly, resting where a thermo-
meter marks 64° or less. There is a feeling of tightness
about the neck ; the chest heaves with a gasp, instead of
rising steadily ; the shoulders take a share in working the
bellows ; and generally there is distress, and a feeling like
nightmare. Men at work in bad places pant and seem to
breathe painfully ; their faces are red, or purple ; their
veins swelled ; their brows wet, and begrimed with soot.
They seem to labour hard, though their work is not harder
than quarrying stones elsewhere. In such places candles
flicker and sometimes go out altogether ; no puffing or draw-
ing will light a pipe or keep it lighted. There is no laughter,
no fun ; no busy cheery clatter of active labour at close ends;
there is silent toil ; for carbonic acid is not laughing-gas.
56 AIR.
When a sump and rise meet, where they have " holed
through/' the hot air in the rise flies up into the upper level,
and the cold air falls in behind it. The temperature changes
instantaneously and the hole clears as fast. Heat and weight
liave room to act, and they do the work of many boys. Fans
and sipiirts are thrown aside, till the levels have been driven
another stage.
But the foul air of an end is only diluted with less foul air
if there be stagnation at outlets, where cobwebs are still.
To retrace downward steps, to return to npper air, has
ever been labour and hard work. From the bottom of a deep
mine, perhaps from under the sea, whose waves are heard
rolling stones above the roof—up perpendicular ladders, per-
haps in the pumping shaft with the rods moving up and
down within a few inches of his back ; with foul stinging
mine-water dripping on his head, and a smoky candle sput-
tering in front of his open mouth ; edgeways through clefts,
on all fours, feet foremost, head foremost, on his back, his
belly, and his sides, the amateur miner follows his guide.
Greasy, muddy, drenched, streaming with perspiration, with
throbbing ears, giddy, tired and gasping like a fish, the man who
is used to climb mountains in fresh air struggles back to it.
When daylight appears, glimmering far over head, when
the trap-door is passed, the first long greedy draught of the
clean pure air of heaven seems too strong. It flies to the
head lilvc brandy. Even miners who are used to such places
often stagger and totter like drunken men when they come
"to grass." These were the sensations of the winner of a
Highland hill-race, in good condition, at the age of twenty-
eight. In well-ventilated mines ordinary fatigue was the sole
result of many a long scramble under ground. An ill-
\entilated mine is a crying evil ; air in it is slow poison;
AIR. 57
working in it shortens life ; it proves ignorance, parsimony,
or poverty—for ventilation is easy to intelligent men, who
Avill learn an easy lesson.
By analysing air collected in close ends, Dr. Angus Smith
has proved the existence of poisonous gases in places where
these sensations are felt. So working in these places must
be injurious. It has also been proved that mining shortens
life, where ventilation is faulty.
It appears, from calculations made by Dr. Farr, immedi-
ately after the census of 1851, that Cornish miners who work
where cm-rents of air are weak and uncertain, die faster than
the Cornish jDopulation who live above ground. They die
faster than colHers who, in Durham and Northumberland,
work in places where air is moved by the direct application
of heat-power to it ; where currents are strong and regular
in the mines.
Foul air fills the black Hst faster than fire-damp and
choke-damp, and all the perils which colliers brave.
The death rates between certain ages were as follows :
—
1
per 1000.
So the principle upon which currents of air move has
been turned to practical use in northern coal pits.
A leader in the Times of February 4, 1864, shows the
evil in dwellings.
Festiniog, in Merionethshire, has been a healthy place for
many years. It stands where mountain air is pure, and natu-
ral drainage good. The people were weU otf, and neither in-
Ages.
58 A in.
temperate nor uncleanly in their personal and domestic
habits ; they earned good wages, hut they slept in foul air.
A new slate-quarry drew men to the district ; no one had
time to build ; the work went on day and night ; so houses,
rooms, and beds, like the lodgings of Box and Cox in the
farce, were occupied continuously by successive tenants. In
two low bedrooms, 8x6, and 12 x 6 feet, ten and twelve
people were lodged. In some lodgings the beds were never
vacated, nor the rooms aired, either by day or night. So
fever broke out amongst the overcrowded. There were six
or seven hundred cases amongst six or seven thousand people,
and sixty or seventy died.
Without fresh air constantly supplied, men do suffer;
but air is free to all, if they will only open their mouths and
take it.
The law which governs air above the sea-level is good
law under it ; and governs all gases and all fluids, fire-damp
and choke-damp, steam and water, as well as air. It governs
air in copper-mines and in coal-pits, in houses and in the
atmosphere.
Bacon was right when he wrote long ago, " It were good
FOR MEN TO THINK OF HAVING HEALTHFUL AIR IN THEIR
HOUSES."*
There are many tool-marks which moving air leaves on
the earth. It bends trees ; it uses them as levers to tear up
turf and stones ; it blows sand ; it blows waves against a coast,
and the coast wears into cliffs. The atmosphere is but one
part of one wheel in a vast machine ; and it leaves its mark
on tlu! world which turns within it.
The moving powers are few and simple, and the forms
* Ha.'.ni's Works, vol. iii. y. 297.
AIR. 59
which shew their action are easily learned from smoke, trees,
snow-drifts, sand-drifts, waves, and clouds.
These have a meaning which can be read and translated;
they shew movements in air l)y their forms. Motion shews
force, and its direction ; its nature is found by experiment.
Experiment proves that Heat, Cold, and Weight are forces
which produce upward, lateral, and downward movements in
air, and so mould forms, and wear solids.
Observation finds these forces distributed in the world so
as to fulfil conditions which produce these movements in air;
and that heat comes from the sun, and from the eartli. So
cloud-forms and air-marks shew the mechanical action of
solar and terrestrial heat, and of weight, in the air. They are
tool-marks.
All atmospheric movements, great and small, can be traced
to one general law, wdiicli governs gases, and fluids also. But
before a law can be applied, it must be well known to those
who apply it ; and the laws of natural ventilation are often
unknown to men who try to fill houses and mines with jmre
air.
w ^. >
Via. 13. Bent Trees near Little Ormes Heai
Sketcherl in a calm. 1S63.
CHAPTEE vrir.
WATER.
If heat be a force which moves all gases away from centres,
then for that reason alone it is probable that heat also moves
liquids, and in the same direction.
It is not necessary to begin at the dial-plate, and work
through a whole train of machinery, in order to find the
centre of every wheel ; or to go back to the rim of each wheel
to find the axle for every spoke. All British railways con-
verge on London, but all railway journeys up to town need
not begin at the furthest station. Without travelling round
the world, we know that chimneys at the Antipodes smoke
opposite ways, and that blacks fall towards each other, and
the earth's centre.
If a natural law is known, its results foUow. Powers
which move the atmosphere and all gases, which radiate
from, and meet at a point, bring a traveller to a large junction,
from which to make a fresh start, or take a short cut, towards
his object.
It is easily seen that forces which move air also move water.
Clouds whose forms betray movements in air are made up
of water.
When air expands, it takes in water like a sponge ; when
it is lifted air lifts water. When it contracts it drops the
load.
Put air is expanded by heat, and contracts when cold;
WATER. 61
SO heat, weight, and air, are as hands which open and close
about a wet sponge while lifting and lowering it.
In lifting air heat certainly lifts water to the highest point
reached by clouds, and it carries them from the Equator to the
Poles, and far above Coxwell, Glaisher, and Kunchinjunga.
But heat also acts directly on fluids. The sun's direct rays,
when absorbed by water, and accumulated in it, lift it. They
move water away from the centre, along a spoke, as fire drives
steam out of a kettle.
In May 1857, during hot clear weather, two similar glass
vessels were placed on opposite sides of a house, and filled
with water. When weighed in the evening, the vessel which
stood on the sunny side had lost nearly twice as much weight
as the other. The sun's light, and its heat, had lifted water
into the air, and the air had carried it off. But air on one
side of the house could differ little from air on the other side;
so in this experiment the sun's rays drove the water out of
the vessel. In the next trial, a thirsty terrier lapped up
the water and spoiled the result ; but both did the work of
mechanical powers.
According to Sir John Herschel, the amount of solar heat
which reaches the surface of our globe would suffice to melt
a crust of ice an inch thick in an hour, or evaporate a layer
of water nine feet deep in the year ; if part of it were not
expended in warming earth and air as well as ice and water.
According to the same high authority, the actual fall of
water in all shapes, and therefore the evaporation, amounts to
a depth of five feet on the whole globe in each year. The
sun's rays do notable work when they lift and drop such
floods.*
Evaporation is a result of heat, and eveiy experiment
* Good Words, January 1864.
62 WATER.
shews it to be much or little in proportion to heat-power
used, or weight-power removed.
It is common to fix the value of fuel by the weight of
water lifted by heat set free while burning a certain weight
of the fuel under a boiler. But fuel may be so burned as to
spend heat-power on air instead of water.
In like manner, sun-power is differently applied at every
different latitude, at every season, at every hour of the day,
at every spot on the earth's surface, and the most of the rays
shine into space or on other planets.
Most of the solar heat which gets to our world stops
about the Equator, where the sun's rays beat directly on the
ball by day, and from tropical regions most heat is radiated
onwards by hot ground at night.
Least solar heat is absorbed at the Poles, where the rays
glance off the slanting white surface.
So evaporation goes on most rapidly near the Equator in
summer, and about noon, when the sun's rays strike into the
earth, and drive water out into the air.
Though heat coming from the sun is the power which acts
most conspicuously on air and water in the atmosphere, it is
not the sole heat-power used, for it only penetrates a small
way into the earth.
At Yakutsk, in Siberia, lat. 62° K, the earth is frozen to
a depth of 382 feet. The summer sun thaws 3i feet of the
surface, but the ice-crust is always hard lower down. If the
sun were the only source of heat, this crust would be found at
all depths. It is not so. Under the ice-formation is earth-
heat. Temperature rises in descending : below 382 feet ice
melts, and hard ice conglomerates are melted beneath the
frozen crust. The mean temperature at the surface is 14°
:
below the ice-region it is more tlian 32°. But at 217 feet the
AVATKR. 63
temperature of tlie ground is 27°; and at 50 feet 18°. So
heat is below and cold above, at Yakutsk.
On the American side, the ice-crust comes further south,
but it is thinner at the same latitude. Perhaps the eartli's
heat comes further up from its home near the centre.
At Mackenzie Eiver, the mean annual temperature at the
surface is 25°, the ice-crust 17 feet thick, and summer melts
11 feet of the frozen surface.*
Solar evaporation goes on wherever the sun shines on
water or damp ground, though at different rates ; and terres-
trial evaporation goes on also. Winds blow ; dew, rain, snow,
and hail fall ; rivers collect and flow;
glaciers gather and
slide above the earth's surface, chiefly because the side that is
next the sun absorbs heat by day, which travels onwards into
space by night, leaving water behind it. But rays which the
earth absorbs radiate back from the earth's centre, together
with rays which the earth gives off, and together they lift
water and air up the spokes, as far as they have power ; for radi-
ating heat is radiating force, whatever its source may be.
Solar heat is not much absorbed by smooth reflecting surfaces.
Mercury in a thermometer placed behind a mirror, ex-
posed to sunlight, is less expanded than mercury placed
behind a black board. But a thermometer, placed in the
focus of a concave mirror, on a sunny day, shews that reflected
heat is strong reflected force when it meets resistance. Placed
in the focus of a strong lens, a spirit thermometer shews that
refracted solar heat bursts a glass boiler.
A thin dark object hke a leaf or a slate sinks straight
down into ice on a bright day, but a thick stone protects ice,
absorbs heat, and gives it off by night as the world does.
For this reason large stones often stand upon raised pedestals
* Keith Johnston's Physical Atlas, etc. etc.. etc.
G4 WATER.
of ice, on glaciers, while fine dust melts ice, sinks in, and is
buried in ice, at night.
So in nature. Solar heat is more absorbed by land than
it is by sea, because the sea is smooth ; and least of all in
high latitudes, where the frozen surface slants most and re-
flects best ; and it penetrates little anywhere.
But when a hill-side faces the sun, and rays strike it
fairly, sun-power is as strong in high as in low latitudes and
levels. All arctic voyagers, mountain travellers, and a?ronauts,
have found it so. Pitch melts on the side of ships ; men,
balloons, and thermometers feel the power, and measure it.
A white tent, pitched on a spit of white sand beside the
Tana, lat. 70° K, became so insupportably hot about noon on
a summer day in 1851, that panting inmates were forced to
move it to the cool shade of a birch tree, where mosquitoes
were thick and bloodthirsty. " Cuoikoedne he olla"—there
are many midges—quoth a Lapp boatman ; but in the shadow
of a hill there was frost.
A balloon rising through a cloud feels the sun-power, and
expands with dangerous rapidity ; though transparent air
above the clouds is cold as air in arctic regions.
The power of the sun's rays to lift water depends on accu-
mulation of heat-power ; and that depends on the nature of
the substance on which the rays fall, and on the shape of the
surface which they strike.
A rough black surface gathers more heat than a white
one, and reflects less ; a black bulb thermometer stands
higher than one with clear glass. A glass vessel, filled with
black sand and water, loses more weight on a sunny day than
a vessel placed beside it, and filled with white sand and water.
White gun-cotton will not readily explode in the focus of a
burning-glass, because it is transparent. A lens of clear ice
WATER. 65
will transmit and condense the sun's rays, and light tinder.
Clear air is little warmed by the sun's heat, which it transmits
and refracts. Clear fluid absorbs more heat, but it transmits
a great deal ; for a glass bulb filled with .spirit is a powerful
burning-glass, though not so powerful as a solid ball of clear
glass.
All these are questions of degree ; the facts remain. The
action of solar heat is directly opposed to that of weight at
the earth's surface, and it lifts water when absorbed by it.
The earth's heat has a like power, and acts in the same
direction.
When pi'essure is removed from water, placed nnder the
bell of an air-pump, water rises from the vessel which con-
tains it ; and heat i» the moving power, for water which
remains cools and freezes. The heat acts upwards.
When air is cold enough, water steams np into it visibly,
and heat is the moving power still ; for water freezes, and
vapour which evaporates turns to rain, and falls down when
it paiis with the heat which raised it up. Lower down,
water in a dark mine steams under greater atmospheric pres-
sure. The earth's heat lifts it, and the earth's weight drags
if down when it cools. Still lower, water from a hot spring
1)0 ils and spouts up, and blows off in clouds of steam ; but it
rains do\\Ti in floods when it gets out of reach of the earth's
heat which raised it. Heat in the earth lifts water at the
end of every spoke where water is, but with varying force at
every point on the sphere ; because heat is variously impeded
by various rocks.
Heat artificially set free acts in the same direction, what-
ever the source may be. Water rises from a kettle on a fire,
and hot steam lifts a piston, or bursts the boiler.
Having found a centre from which air moves, and a power
F
G6 WATKi;.
which moves it ; the inovcincuts ol' water are t'ouiid to coin-
cide with those of air, so far as anything is certainly known
about them. Eising columns of steam move opposite ways at
the antipodes, like columns of smoke or mist. Air and ^v'ater
circulate together in the atmosphere, and within their bounds
they are moved up and down by heat and weight.
If these two forces so act on water above the sea-level,
they probably act in the same way on water in the sea.
There are polar and equatorial winds ; and similar ocean-
currents flow in like directions unless impeded by land. When
they can be seen, water-clouds are found drifting under water,
and their forms repeat the story told by clouds in air.
We deal with the bottom of the air-ocean, and look up for
signs of movement in it. We must look down on the sea,
and through waves at water-clouds.
Air rises far above the solid earth. It flows over moun-
tains as the sea flows over sunken rocks ; and its surface is
out of reach. We cannot dive to the bottom of the sea ; but
we may look to the surface of the ocean for information as to
the surface of the atmosphere, and seek at the bottom of the
air-ocean to learn something about the bottom of the sea.
From the movements of air, movements in water can be
inferred, when powers which move botli are known ; and ex-
periments made with one fluid test theories formed about
another.
It is easy to see movements in water.
The first difficulty is to get a smooth surface througli
which to look. On the calmest day waves disperse rays of
light, and reflect them, so that a sea-bottom is hardly seen,
except in shallow water. A diver cannot see clearly under
water ; his eyes are not made to see there, and objects seem
blurred and indistinct. A lump of chalk is wliite, but has no
WAT El!. 67
definite shape ; a silver coin shines like light behind ground
glass; the distance fades away into dark green, or blue, or
black.
Smugglers of former days found a way to meet the difii-
culty, and their contrivance is used by seal-hunters and
others. When smugglers were chased, their practice was to
chain their cargo of tubs together, and sink them ; taking cross
bearings at the spot. Their foes used to drag hooks about at
random, and sometimes they fished up the prize. The smug-
glers, when the coast was clear, returned and peered about
with a marine telescope. A sheet of strong glass was fixed
in one end of a barrel, and sunk a few inches ; a man put his
head into the other end, shut out the light from above, and
saw clearly, because light came straight, to eyes in air,
through a plane from which no light was reflected.
With tliis simple contrivance, fish, sea-weeds, shells, sand,
stones, ripple-marks, flickering lights refracted by waves,
dead seals, and brandy tubs are easily seen in four or five
fathoms of clear water; and water-clouds are seen rolling
below when water is thick with mud. The gazer gets a ver-
tical view of thiugs under him, as an aeronaut does of land
and clouds beneath his car.
So far as this contrivance enables men to see the land
under the waves, movements under water closely resemble
movements under air. Sea-weeds, like land plants, bend be-
fore the gale ; fish, like birds, keep their heads to the stream,
and hang poised on their fins ; mud-clouds take the shape of
water-clouds in air ; impede light, cast shadows, and take
shapes which point out the directions in which currents flow.
It is strange, at first, to hang over a boat's side, peering into
a new world, and the interest grows. There is excitement in
watching big fish swoop, like hawks, out of their sea-weed
WATEK.
forests, after a white fly sunk to the tree tops to tempt
them, and the fight whicli follows is better fun when pLainly
seen.
Of late years glass tanks have been used as fish cages,
and the ways of fish are better known, because the}^ are now
plainly seen in their own element.
The ways of water may be studied in the same contriv-
ance.
^t'
WMT^^x
The principle might be extended. A boat wdth plate glass
windows beneath the water line would make men and fish
still better acquainted, by bringing them face to face. The
man would be in the cage, and the cage might be in a salmon
pool where fish are free.*
If air in a hothouse be a miniature atmosphere, water in a
glass tank is a working model of a sea, and heat and cold may
be set to work the model engine at home.
Let one of the common fish-tanks be half filled with
clear water, and placed where the sun may shine upon it.
* A boat inadf on lliis iiiiiiri]ilc lias liccii iisod in tho Islo ol" Man for
spearing fish.
WATER. 69
Float a few lumps of rough ice at one end, and sink a black
stone at the other ; and, when the water has settled, pour milk
gently on the ice. An ounce to a gallon serves the purpose.
Milk consists of small white vesicles and a fluid, and, bulk
for bulk, milk is heavier than water. So at first the white
milk sinks in the clear water, and spreads upon the bottom
of the tank, leaving the dark stone like a sunken rock in a
muddy sea, or a mountain top peering over a low fog.
But this arrangement is unstable, because two powers are
shut up in the tank with the water.
The sun warms the stone at one end, and the stone warms
the water below. At the other end melting ice cools water
above. Temperature is unevenly distributed, so weights are
uneven, and the machine turns round.
Heavy cold streams pour down from the ice at the cold
end, and flow along the bottom towards the stone, driving
milk vesicles like drops of water in a gray mist.
Light warm fountains float up from the stone at the
warm end, and flow along near the surface towards the ice,
driving milk like wreaths of mountain mist rolling up into a
summer sky from a mountain side.
The water is circulating, and every movement is shewn
by milk-clouds, for the glass tank gives a vertical section of
a circulating fluid system, driven by the sun's rays and by
weight.
Cloud-forms are copied with marvellous fidelity in this
water toy, and because the movement is very slow, they are
easily seen and copied.
But the tank gives a section of air as well as water. The
miniature sea has an atmosphere, and the same forces work
both engines. Let a bit of smouldering paper, tinder, rope,
touchwood, or any such light combustible, fall on the ice-raft,
70 WATKH.
aiid cover the tank with a sheet of glass to keep in the
smoke.
If there be small ocean-currents in the water, there are
storms in the smoky air ; and the systems revolve in the
same direction, because the moving forces are the same.
Cooled air streams down upon the floating ice, and drives
gray smoke rapidly before it, drifting along the water towards
the warm end, like a cold sea-fog before a north-easter.
At the warm end the mist lifts, like a sea-fog when it
nears a warm shore. The smoke rises to the glass roof,
spreads there and returns along the top towards the ice,
whirling, streaming out, and taking the forms of fleecy sum-
mer clouds, which float high in air above the Atlantic in fine
weather. " Stratus," " cumulus," " cirrus," " cirro cumulus,"
" comoid cirrus," and the rest of the learned tribe ;" mackarel
sky," " mare's tails," " Noah's arks," and vulgar popular clouds
of their class ; nameless cloud-forms which are the joy of an
artist, and his despair when he tries to copy them ; all appear
drifting with streams, which various degrees of weight and
heat cause to flow in air and water shut up within a cubic
foot of space.
The amount of power used : the difference in temperature
between the ice and the stone, moves air a great deal faster
than water, because it is lighter, and there is less resistance
to be overcome. It follows that winds should move faster
than ocean-currents ; and they do in fact.
When damp air has cooled and contracted to a certain
point, it lays its load of water on any cold substance which
takes in part of the charge of heat which expanded air.
Vapour is condensed. It follows the heat out of the warm
air to the cold substance, and if it cannot get in, it stops on
the surface, and gathers in small round drops. In the ex-
WATER. 71
periment above described, cooled glass at the cold end of the
tank stops water coming from the outer air ; while tlie heat
passes through glass and cold water to melt floating ice. Dew
forms in curves on the outside, and it marks tlie dew-point
temperature in the moving streams which cool the glass
witliin. The curve is like a section of a river whirlpool, or a
waterspout, and it coincides with the shape of the milk-cloud.s.
When the damp air of a room lays its load of vapour
on cold glass windows in hard frost, similar curves are copied
in solid ice. The dew-point temperature of the air in the
room is marked out by a fog on the window, at first ; then
drops change to crystals, and ice-trees gi'ow up liy robbing the
air which falls along the glass.
When a fire is lighted in a large room with windows en-
crusted with these beautiful forms, the march of the heat
may be seen. As hot air rises and flows to the windows, ice
begins to thaw at the top pane ; crystal trees change to haze
and vanish, wiped from the glass by dry air ; or melted
branches slide and stream down the window, dragged by
weight when freed by heat. ^Vllere the fire radiates directly,
the windows clear first. In corners sheltered from the rays
ice lasts longest ; and the lowest pane is the last to thaw and
the first to fog. Heat pushes water towards the glass, away
from tlie fire ; weight pushes it towards the earth's centre.
The radiating and converging forces do not part and meet at
one point in a room ; so the dew-point temperature is not in
a- regular figure. In the atmosphere, the dew-point curve has
reference to the earth's centre ; and vapour forms in shells
about the solid earth because the two forces meet and part
within the shell.
The facts shewn by experiment are confirmed by every
fresh trial and observation. When temperature and weight
72 WATEK.
are unevenly disi)osed in fluids, it takes time to adjust the
balance, but it tends to equilibrium, and to regular forms.
A warm bath is arranged in layers of various thickness,
and varying temperature. When a human body is placed in
it, natural observers stationed at the extremities send nerve
telegraphs to head-quarters, to announce that one foot or
hand is in warm or cold regions, and uncomfortable.
To prevent this evil, a bath attendant, who knows his
work, stirs the water with a paddle ; but much stirring hardly
spreads heat evenly throughout a bath.
Near Reykjavik, in Iceland, is a hot spring from which a
scalding burn escapes. French man-of-war's men, who fre-
quent the harbour to protect rreucli fishermen, have built a
turf dam across the burn, about a quarter of a mile from the
source ; and they use the steaming pool as a hot swimming
bath and washing establishment. The place was thus de-
scribed in 1862 :
—
" Last night we wandered along the shore to a hot spring,
which rises in a small hollow about two miles from the town.
We found the place, and a dam, made by French sailors in
the burn which runs from the spring. The water was about
8U° ; so we stripped, and plunged in, and swam about in the
tepid water. The spring itself is about 170°, hot enough to
cook eggs. We had none to cook ; but there were plenty of
egg-shells and broken bottles to show the ways of the place.
"A lot of cows were browsing on rich grass, which grows
in the hollow, and some of them stood close to the spring
chewing the cud thoughtfully in the steam. The setting sun
threw their blue shadows on the cloud of white mist, like
great long-legged ghosts of cows. It was dead calm, and very
warm ; and the hills, and the golden sea, and the purple
islands iioating in the bay, made a beautiful Claude landscape.
WATER. 73
It was Italy iu Iceland. There we lay stretched at ease on
a velvet turf, and smoked, and watched the growing shadows,
exclaiming, 'how beautiful ;' and the old cows seemed to feel
as jolly as we did.
"At last, when it was nearly ten o'clock at night, the cows
seemed to think it time to go home to be milked. So one
stepped deliberately down to the scalding burn, and smelt at
it. She put one foot in, then another, and then the demure
old brute sprang out on the grass, curled her tail over her
back, and capered a wild dance, so utterly at variance with
her former staid demeanour, that we all lay back and roared
with laughter.
" Next came a giddy young calf, who went through the
same performance ; but he, being more active, shook his
scalded heels in the air in a way that was perfectly ludicrous.
" The brutes, who should have known better, speedily re-
sumed theu' jplacidity and walked away ; so we got up and
walked off to our floating home, where we drank tea on deck,
and went to bed by daylight at midnight.
" The next night was as fine, as warm and calm. SnaifeU,
.sixty miles away at least, showed his head against a'golden
sky, in which clouds floated steadily, like the eider ducks and
gulls floating about us on the calm water ; but every now and
again a strong cold blast fell down from the still sky, broke
up the mirror of the sea, and then died away as suddenly as
it came.
" The air was in layers, the layers were of different weight
and temperature, and the wind was ' straight up and down/
like an Irishman's hurricane."
The natural hot bath was a good illustration of a similar
arrangement, and the glass tank and glass windows show the
movements which result from it.
74 WATEI?.
Water which stands in this liot bath is not stirred.
The warm stream flows in above, and it cools by radiation
as it flows to the far end, where it cools and sinks. Tlie
supply at the source is 170°, the waste at the dam is scarcely
tepid, and the pool is circulating and rolling over and over
because of its uneven weight. When a bather takes a header
into it, he finds himself shooting through all sorts of climates.
He feels summer, autumn, and winter rolling along his skin,
as he shoots down. When he stands upright, he feels that
temperature is packed in horizontal layers in the water about
him, and that the cold layers are below. Wlien he swims
about, he finds hot and cold regions in different corners at the
same level, for the heat is nowhere evenly spread. Lower
down the ground may be frozen, but under all is the boiler
from which the hot water rose. From this experiment with
nature's thermometers, it appears that the coldest strata of
water in a pond are generally below, but sometimes warm
regions are below colder layers in the pond, as in air and sea.
The movements of water about to freeze are well seen in
the glass tank above described.
At one corner a glass thermometer is hung with the bulb
near the bottom ; at the opposite corner the stalk of a ther-
mometer is thrust through a bung, and so placed that it can
be raised or sunk without disturbing the water much. Thin
ice formed in the tank floats at the surface, and a block-tin
bottle filled with hot water is sunk. The heat of the water
put into the bottle is 212°, the ice is 32°. On the ice, about
the centre of the tank, some lamp black is painted on with
a brush, one side of the tank is covered with a screen of thin
paper, and then the machine is ready for action.
As the colour is at the coldest place :—on the ice, it marks
the position of the coldest water when tlie ice begins to melt,
WATER. 75
and the cold is easily measured with the instruments. As the
hot bottle is in clear water, white paper seen through clear
water marks the position of the water which is warmed. As
lamp black takes many days to settle in a tumbler, it shews
the movements of water, for it only moves about the tank,
because water is moved by weight and temperature.
Fig. 15. Freezing.
Ice being at the top is lightest, and its temperature is 32°.
AVhen it is melting the colour begins to move. If it is warmed
by the sun, a dark revolving colunm sinks very slowly down.
But beneath the ice are layers which contain intricate patterns
of curved lines of black, which bend and wave slowly, but
keep near the ice. The temperature in the coloured band is
Ice, 32°
Water, 33°
34°
37° As shown in the woodcut.
70 WATER.
So the coldest of these layers is the lightest, and the solid
crust is lightest of all. The clear water in contact with the
coloured layer is at 40°, and so is the water elsewhere in the
tank, after the hot bottle has given off its charge of heat and
melted the equivalent weight of ice. So water at 40° is
heavier than water at 37°, and the different temperatures are
drawn in black on a white ground. But water that is warmer
than 40° is lighter than water at 37°.
When a water-bottle filled with hot water, coloured with
lamp black, is sunk through an ice dome, without the stopper,
a warm dark column rises up like the Afret whom the Ara-
bian fisherman let out of the copper vase ; or the foul air
which in cold weather rises out of a copper mine. When the
water is hot, a thing like a round-headed mushroom grows
rapidly out of the neck, and takes all manner of strange
shapes. The head is like some monster which a painter sees in
his waking dreams, a vision by Gustave Dore, for example.
The stalk bends and winds through the clear water like an
eel, or a black snake creeping out of its hole. When it gets
to the cold region, the top spreads out like a palm tree,
waving its drooping boughs, and shedding a crop of rings,
and spheres, and streamers ; like fire-works in daylight. The
temperature of the coloured water whicli rose from the bottle
to the top is in this case about 44°, when clear water is 40°
at the bottom and elsewhere. So of this series the warm
layer is lightest.
While the bottle is hot the pace is fast, as it cools the
phantom growths are nipped. When the water is almost
boiling, it rises in water at 33° like smoke from a furnace
chinniey rising in air.
When the temperature has fallen in the bottle and spread
through the tank, small jets of colour rise up and sink back
WATKH. 77
into the pipe whence they rose. Their shapes are like those
of plants rising through the earth, their action is that of a
boiling spring.
When all the extra charge of heat has escaped from the
bottle, there is rest at the source ; the rapid action ceases, and
the coloured water slowly takes its i)lace in the tank.
On a frosty evening when there is no ice, but when ice is
about to form in the tank, the water which rose out of the
bottle forms an even layer above clear water, and the
temperature then is 37° above, and about 40° below.
In that case the water which rose because it was warmed,
stays where it cools, beyond 37°, and after that the more it
cools the higher it rises, till it is 32° at the top and a floating
solid.
AVhen the hot bottle spends its force beneath a solid ice
roof, thermometers mark 32°
33^
34°
35°
and the blackest layer in the series is the lowest and the
warmest.
When freezing water freezes, crystals expel colour from
ice, and water-currents distribute paint amongst the remain-
ing fluid. Circulation goes on under ice, for some of the dark
water which was next below the ice when it began to form
is found at the bottom when all the instruments read close
upon 32°, and the solid crust has formed.
Water, then, is a gas, a fluid, and a solid at different tem-
peratures ; and the formation of one crust on one fluid illus-
trates the formation of other crusts.
The ice crust forms next the coldest place, and the fluid
remains shut up inside.
78
In a timk the process can be watclied, and the disposi-
tion of the crust is seen, because ice is transparent, and ver-
tical glass walls bound ice planes through which rays pass
undistorted. A plate of ice seven inches broad is more
transparent edgewise than an equal thickness of plate-
glass.
Refraction
It refracts rather less than water. On the surface, the ice
is disposed in layers, whose planes coincide with those which
colour showed in freezing water. The layers are added
below ; they are horizontal and regiilar where the ice is
smooth above ; where the ice is rough outside, the planes of
stratification within are bent and crumpled. The surface
next the wall is a plane, where the layers are ilat and undis-
turbed ; it waves where the strata are bent and wrinlded.
The thickness of the upper crust varies ; at corners, the
angular solid is rounded off, so as to form a dome.
From these solid corners long blade-like crystals radiate
at all angles from 1° to 90°. Tliey are like spokes of wheels,
WATER. 79
whose common centres are the corners of the tank ; or as
fans behmd the glass, opening from the angles where three
planes meet.
Each of these blades is like the back of a saw with crystal
teeth growing into the water, away from the glass.
When a tank is so placed that frosty air circulates under
it, ice crystals form at the bottom also, and radiate from the
lower corners. The glass box is lined at last with a box of
solid ice, and fluid water is shut up in a curved crystal
chamber, wherein it circulates till it is frozen.
By pouring hot water on the ice, a hole is quickly bored
through it. When coloured water is poured on the surface,
near the hole, it is warmer than ice, however cold it may be,
and it sinks through, falling like the column which rose out
of the bottle, but very slowly. It strikes on the bottom and
rises up again, steadily working its way through the colder
water, and forming itself into crumpled layers below. Athermometer marks 33° when placed in the colour. So water
at 33° is heavier than ice at 32°, and, therefore, solid ice
must float in water at any temperature.
The charge of heat which a mass of fluid water contains,
passes outwards ; and leaves ice where it passes through any
substance which stops water but cannot stop heat.
It is the rule that cold water is heavier than warm water,
but the rule does not hold good for all temperatures. At 32°
fresh water is ice, at 37° and all lower teinperatures it is
about to become ice, and it floats on water at 40°.
At 4-4° it rises through water at 40°, and then it melts ice
floating above.
So fresh water is heaviest about 39° at some temperature
between 40° and 37°, and many other fluids appear to have a
temperature of greatest density.
80 WATER.
Salt water of the specific gravity of 1.U2G freezes at 28°.
At the specific gravity of 1.104 it freezes at 14°.
As steam at 212°, or as vapour at any temperature, water
takes up most space, is lightest, and refracts light least. As
ice at 32°, 28°, or 14°, it takes up more space than it does
when fluid. As fluid, water takes up least space, and is
heaviest ; it has greatest density, and refracts light most.
So vapour floats on ice, and ice on water. At or about
37°, water, having got rid of extra heat, seems to begin to
assume the angular shape of ice crystals. Curves become
straight, waves are calmed, bends change to angles, while
coloured water is freezing. The angular shape takes more
room, the crystal is bigger than the cold drop, but there is no
more water in it. So the crystal floats, and crystallizing
water floats up next beneath crystallized ice.
From these experiments it follows that layers of water
of various changing temperatures must move ; and the tem-
peratures being known, the direction of movement can be
inferred.
From other experiments it appears that air and sea are in
fact arranged in moving layers of various thickness, tempera-
ture, weight, and density.
On a fine summer evening when the sun is nearing a sea
horizon, some of the air-shells may be seen. Rays of light
are variously refracted by lenses of different densities, and
the atmosphere is a great compound concave lens.
The glass of an argand burner, though transparent, appears
to cut across the flame like a dark bar at the bent shoulder.
Any lamp shows the effect. When the sun is near the
horizon, his liglit slants through domes of air which surround
the earth, and, like a nest of glass shades, they refract the
rays more or less according tn their shape and density.
AVATEH. 81
The round ball is distorted. As it sinks the disc uf light
is bent and broken np into irregular figures. The sinking
light in passing the layers darkens, but the bars are flat and
stationary, so the edge of the sun appears to bend and wave,
as a lamp does when the shoulder of the glass chimney is
lifted or lowered. If any clouds hang about the horizon in
the twilight, they too are flat, for they are the edges of thin
shells of condensing vapour, which made the air dense befon^
sunset. (See Fig. 17.)
These upper regions have often been explored. In Mr.
Glaisher's late balloon-ascents, in which pluck was a very
conspicuous feature, it was found that although high regions,
which correspond to regions of perpetual snow on high
mountains, are cold, still sensible heat decreases irregularly,
and is constant at no stage on the scale. Because snow
falls upon the highest mountains, water in some shape must
be carried higher than 28,000 feet above the sea ; and accord-
ingly, in June 1863, cirrus clouds and a blue sky were seen far
above a balloon raised four and a half miles above England.
Tlie temperature was 17° at the highest point reached,
but far above that cold shell of air, water was packed in the
form of cirrus clouds. They marked a dew-point. Lower
down, from 1?.,000 dowii to 10,000 feet, M-as a deo]) bed where
G
82 WATK1{.
tlie temperature was 32'^ or 33°, and tlie air thick with vapour
and frozen water. ]\Iist, snow, and crystals of ice were float-
ing and falling ready to be moved in any direction. The.
water was there in a solid form, ready to rise higher if the
air rose, or to fall into lower and Avarmer strata, or on the
earth. It was colder below, but near the surface was summer
weather, and a temperature of 66°, because the earth is warm.
The arrangement was unstable. It was one to cause
motion ; the heavy snow was above and the light vapour
below ; the one must fall and the other rise. But if the snow
came down to the region of 66° and summer weather, the
earth's own heat and the extra store wliich the sun had given
it, were ready to send the piston up again to the dew-point.
In a former ascent at Paris, a temperature of 16° was
reached at a height of 23,000 feet above the ground where the
temperature was 87°. The mean temperature at the ground
in Nova Zembla is 17°.
It is not given to every one to mount so high with a M'hole
battery of instruments, but it is easy to understand the ar-
rangement of the atmosphere from models worked by heat and
weight, when it is known that temperature decreases as the
distance from the earth's centre increases, and that heat is
disposed in layers above the ground.
Air in high regions is pressed by less weight. It is colder
than air near the earth ; but, like a sponge relieved from
pressure, it is better able to hold water the higher it is.
There is more room in it, so to speak, and the dew-point is
colder. When air at 32° was found resting on strata sensibly
colder, the upper layer was still better able to hold water,
because still more expanded by the heat which it had absorbed.
A stream of warm, dani]) air, rising because it is warmed
and expanded ; expanding still more as it rises, because there
is less air above to squeeze it, is like a balloon, expanding as
WATKi;. 83
it rises, and carries great i)art of its load of water to liigli
regions, where there is little sensible heat, Init much heat
latent.
Clouds, high snowy mountains, and balloon-ascents, prove
that water is somehow lifted more than 28,000 feet above the
sea, and there seems nothing to stop it short of the limit at
which the earth's weight and the earth's heat balance each
other in their action on water.
As water evaporates spontaneously at all temperatures,
and even in vacuo when the weight of the atmosphere is
taken away, heat moves water one way, and weight moves it
in the opposite direction. That seems the working principle of
the atmospheric engine, though the machinery is complex
and hard to comprehend.
The depths of the sea have also been explored, though they
have not been visited. Deep-sea soundings have been taken;
living star-fish have been brought up from a depth of 7560 feet
;
the sea is fluid at the lowest depth reached ; so it must obey
laws which affect fluids in smaller quantities. Sea temperatures
are packed in layers like the bath, the pond, the model tank,
and the atmosphere ; and these all circulate for the same reason.
Having proved experimentally that cold adds specific
weight to given quantities of air and vapour ; and of water
till a certain degree of cold is reached ; a few of the tempera-
ture's which have been found at various heights and depths,
in air and sea, at various latitudes, may be arranged in the
following shape for comparison with models, and with the
vertical and horizontal movements of the atmosphere, shown on
Maury's diagram (p. 28). The arrangement and superposition
of temperatures, the consequent change of weight, and resulting
movements in air, water, and ice, in rooms and glass tanks,
as shown on the woodcuts, pp. 34, 68, 75, 78, and described
above, will be found to coincide with, explain, and illustrate,
84
the temperatures and movements of atmosphere and ocean, so
far as they are comparable, and so far as they are known.
Water would move like air if it were as deep as the
atmosphere. Cold columns of gas and fluid—of air and
water—displace warmer columns of equal dimensions, because
they are heavier. Cold columns of sea-water, in arctic
regions and at Cape Horn, 2300 and 5400 feet deep, with the
temperatures H^ g^., are heavier than a warm column near the
Equator 2400 feet deep, with the temperaturesH^.
So air
and ocean circulate because of heat and weight.
At the Poles columns of air which are colder than -13" ai-e heavier than a column of
equal height at the Equator, whose average temperature is 56°.
S 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 o 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 N
Heavy cold air sinks. Warm light
:
Africa, 32°
32°, 8000 feet, Patagonia.
?-i3° 38°, Cape Ho
Warm light air rises. Heavy cold air sinks
17° Glaisher, 4^ miles. Balloon.
t6° Paris, 23,000 feet. Balloon.
32°, 1550 feet, Himalayas.
32°, 4000 feet, Norway.
66°, Glaisher.
87°, Paris. Spitzbergen, 32°. -13° ?
• - m
85
Weight and Cold.
1 Gaseous matter = Watery vapour and air.
2 Solid = Ice and air.
3 Fluid = Water and air.
Heat.
Two opposing forces meet at some layer of the sphere,
and so work the air and the water-engines, to which geologi-
cal denudation is ascribed. Characters which these engrave
upon the solid earth are written with heat and weight.
But because the double engine consists of many cutting-
wheels, and each wheel makes a different tool-mark, rocks
which bear marks of air and of water are variously marked
by the contriver of the engine, which carves hills and glens.
D Elevation.
I'll of the Sn^fkll Peninsula, opposite to Reylij.ivik.
After sunset, June 27, 18<;-2.
CHAPTER IX.
DENUDATION—TIME.
There is an ingenious device for sculpturing marble, which
illustrates the working of engines wliicli carve hills.
An artist's thought is modelled in clay, and cast in plaster
of Paris. A block of marble is laid beside the solid thought,
and the engine is placed between the stone and the model.
Power is got out of fire and water, or water and weight, and
it is passed through a train of wheels, strings, and levers,
to a small cutting-wheel which revolves rapidly at the end
of a bar.
Let this wheel stand for a circidating atmosphere charged
with water.
At the other end of the bar a point touches the model, and
universal j(5ints allow the bar to move every way. But the
engine is so contrived, that if the point rises, the wheel rises
as much ; if it falls, the cutting-wheel falls also, and Avhere it
touches, it cuts away marble, and makes tool-marks and a
pile of chips. Gradually the artist's thought looks out of the
block of stone. It bears the marks of a steam-engine worked
by heat and weight, but it is a man's thought nevertheless.
Geologists have to learn the tool-marks of tlicir trade.
Every tool makes a different mark. The cutting-wheel of
the sculpturing engine cuts grooves, wliich the engineer could
distinguish from an artist's touch; and many different wheels
are used to make coarse and fine carving.
TIME. 87
The lirass wheel of a ghiss-cutter makes a different mark
from the iron wlieel, and tlie wooden polisher makes a dif-
ferent mark from a leather wheel.
A carpenter's adze cuts out a curved hollow, an axe makes
a flat-sided notch, a handsaw marks straight lines and acute
angles on two parallel flat sides, a circular saw draws cycloids
on opposite planes. A gouge, a chisel, a rasp, a file, a centre-
bit, a bradawl, a plane, a plough, a glass-scraper, sandpaper,
all the tools in the chest leave marks on wood which a car-
penter knows. The work of a particular tool with a notch in
it, of a blunt tool or a sharp tool, may be known by the mark.
A blacksmith knows the dint of a sledge-hammer from
hand hammering ; the groove cut with a cold chisel from the
hole punched out with a square point. He has but to look
at iron-work to know the tools used to fashion it, because he
knows the tools and how they work.
A mason knows pointing from chiselling, dressing, and
polishing ; he can distinguish a stone that has been hand-
worked, or sawed up, from one broken out of a cpiarry.
A miner knows the mark of a pick from that of a juniper
;
the crushed surface broken l\y a blow, from one torn by a
blast.
A goldsmith knows the touch of a graver wielded Ity
skilled or by unskilled hands.
A w^ood-engraver, a shoemaker, an optician, an engineer,
a tinker, a painter, a crossing-sweeper, a shoe-black—any
craftsman or artist knows the tool-marks of his familiar art
or mystery, or the sweep of his brush.
A geologist ought to know the tools whose marks he
strives to understand.
It is taught, and it is true, that the earth's outer shell has
been enormouslv " denuded."
88 DEMUDATIOX.
So many feet of rock are wanting to complete aii arch
whose piers remain ; the missmg stones have been removed.
The uppermost layer of a stone arch has been taken away, and
the next course laid bare at one part of the bridge, which
remains standmg, though it is worn down 1)y tracks. The
croAvn of an arch has fallen, enough stone to make a moun-
tain has been denuded from a particular part of the earth's
crust. How the mountain was removed is to be learned from
the marks of the engines used to remove it.
Jhit unless the engines, and their modes of working, are
studied, their work may be misunderstood.
It is often said that a big strath was holloweil by the
river whicli Hdws in it ; (jr that a mountain is a weathered rock
which crumbled into its present form ; but in many cases the
river has little to do with the carving of the glen, and the
weather has scarcely touched the hill since it was scidp-
tured.
Tlie river might have done a great deal in a long
time, Ijut if the whole land was under the sea, river-work
must date from the rise of the land. If there be a sea-shell
high on a hiU-side, rain could not get at the rock, when the
shell was buried under water ; so rock-weathering, like river-
work, had a beginning, if sea-shells and loose rultbish are
above the worn rock.
Iceland is une of the great battle-fields of the powers of
the air which grind down the earth.
It is a good place to watch the; cutting-wheel, the engine
fire, and the smelting-furnace ; it is a place to see work in
progress, to study the engines, and learn the tool-marks of
fire and frost. Heavy work is there going on between large
ocean-currents. The same work is doing wherever air, vapour,
ice, and water, heat and weight, are togetlier, but the rate in
TIME. 89
Iceland is faster than it is in countries where the heavy work
is done. There also is a starting-point from which to reckon
time, for the finished work of fire is wholly different from the
tool-marks of the grinding engines of frost.
At the outset, it is clear that the carving engine has been
long at work.
The beginning from which to reckon geological time is
commonly wanting. The sujjposed rate of wearing by waves
and of deposition by rivers, the thickness of beds deposited
or destroyed withui some historical period—these, or such as
these, are the common measures for time. But if ocean-
currents moved fastei', climate altered or changed place, then
work done may have taken more or less time to do than its
tinishing touches seem to show. There is a river-mark in
Iceland from which to count time with tolerable ceitainty.
If the first mark of denudation was made upon an igneous
surface, the cooling of the crust is a point in time from which
to reckon. At Thing-valla is a river called the Oxera, which,
in ordinary weather, is about the size of an English mill-
stream. The water woidd pass through one of the large iron
pipes which carry Thames water to London. The Oxera falls
over a large cliff into a rift. There can be no doubt that the
cliff over which the stream now falls was formed by the falling
away of the opposite side of the rift, and that the cliffs and the
rocks in the valley were as fluid as water in the river at some
time. To see the place is to l)e convinced of these facts. The
Oxera began to fall over this clift', and denudation began at
the edge, after the lava cooled, and after it split. There is no
water-mark on the opposite cliff, so the stream most probaljly
liegan to flow in its present channel when the bottom of the
valley sank, and the plain l)ecame a slope.
The wliole surface of this lava for nuuu' square miles is
TIME. 91
marked by certain rope-like coils, which formed while the hot
fluid was curdling ; and these rise ahout two inches above the
surface. They are fire-marks.
The water of the Oxera has worn the stone at the edge of
the cliff for a breadth of about thirty yards, at the place where
water is always flowing, unless frozen ; the channel is about
two feet deep, and three or four wide. Where water flows
only during floods, the coils have not been worn away, but
they are smoothed and worn ; and near the deep channel, the
lava-surface is very like that of slag which has been used to
mend a road, and has been worn Ijy traffic. Specimens are
common in Lanarkshire and other iron districts.
Calculating from the angle which the sides of the rift make
with each other, and with the horizon, the beds of lava maybe about 600 feet thick, and it must have taken a long time
to cool such a mass. As it happens, the Icelandic Parliament
have met at the Logberg, on the surface of the lava, for 800
years, and there has been no great change in the valley during
that time, for the gromid is minutely described. At the
earliest date recorded, the Oxera fell into the rift ; a deep pool
in it was the place in which wicked women were drowned;
trees grew on the lava, horses found grazing by the river side.
It must have taken a long time for soil to gather after the
lava had cooled. But things had arrived at this stage 800
years ago. Say that water has been wearing its stone channel
for 1000 years only, and the depth from the fire-mark, the
wrinkle on the lava, to the bottom of the water-mark, two
feet, gives a rate of one foot of lava in five hundred years.
The rate, in aU probability, is far too rapid, but it gives a great
age for these Icelandic rocks, and for those on which they rest.
At other spots streams have cut wide and deep channels
in lavas of the same kind. The river at Godafoss, in the
92 DENUDATION.
north, lias cut a deep channel, and has worked its way back-
wards for some hundreds of yards. The smoothed water-worn
surface is plainly seen on cliffs far below the fall. The river
is large, so it must work faster than the Oxera ; but if one has
dug 900 feet, wliile the other has only cut two, they cannot
have begun to work at the same time. Giving one river credit
for only one-third of the work done, the rate makes the age of
the lava at Godafoss 150,000 years.*
But where streams do not flow on the lava about Goda-
foss, the wrinkles have not been worn off ; so weathering has
not denuded a cpiarter of an inch of igneous rock in that time
at least.
Other Icelandic rivers have done a great deal of work.
The Bruerd has drilled large pits, and it has scooped out
smooth channels of considerable depth.
At Merkiarfoss, near Hecla, a small stream has dug out
a large trench, and it has drilled the most fantastic peep-holes
through a black conglomerate of ashes and stones ; and this
I'ivcr began to work after the volcanic mountain had grown.
At Skogarfoss, a river falls over a cliff on a sea-beach,
and it has dug backwards into the hill for some fifty or sixty
yards. It began to dig after the sea had done its luidermin-
ing, and had retired towards the horizon away from the base
of the old sea-cliff. At the wearing rate the sea made the cliff
75,000 years ago.t
All these times may be wrongly calculated ; they may be
too short or too long ; but when the last formed igneous
rocks have endured so long, it is plain that the wearing of
rocks to form known sedimentary beds must have gone on
during ages, which i(- i.s vain to calculate. However rapid
" 3(10 i\'r[, at (MIC r<i(it ill .'.(10 yciirs.
t 150 led, at 1 ill i'.Od veans.
TIME. 93
the rate may have been wlien the gvinding-engine first began
to work, it has been carving and packing chips for a very long
time. The world is an old world ; and scnlptures on it are
(jld inscriptions, though made with engines which are work-
ing now.
A river is a grinding-wheel in the denuding engine ; a soft
tool Avliich makes a mark. Tools of the same kind are cut-
ting and have lieen cutting patterns on rocks ever since water
rose from the sea, fell on shore, and flowed towards the earth's
centre ; but each river had a beginning, and the time wliicli
has elapsed, since land rose above the sea, is too short for the
work attributed to many rivers.
Fir;. 20. Iceland, July 30, 1S6'2.—Fall of the Oxera.
CHAPTEE X.
DENUDATION li—rxIYEES.
Before a craftsman can recognise a tool-mark, he must be
familiar witli the tool ; before a geologist knows river-marks,
ho must study the ways of rivers.
Falling water proverbially wears a st(3ne ; stones wear in
many ways, and at different rates ; but that which the Oxeni
and other Icelandic rivers have done to lava, streams must
have done to rocks, from the time when the first shower fell,
and the first stream began to flow. So ancient river-marks
ought to be fomid on the oldest rocks, and these ought to re-
semble modern river-marks.
Clouds rise up from earth and sea. A river takes its rise in
the clouds, from which drops fall. Fallen drops collect and
roll from hills into hollows, and so a river grows. On the
stony top of a granite mountain puddles may be seen forming
during a shower. They fill from above, overflow, and so helj)
to fill lower hollows in every rock and stone. These, in their
turn, (jvertlow and send off larger rills, wliich take the shortest
way towards tlie earth's centre, and roll down the steepest
slope.
Streams which flow straight down steep hill-sides must
cut straight furrows, if they cut at all. Such trenches may
be seen on the flanks of Icelandic \'()lcanoes, which have grown
up in modern times ; and on the sides of steep hills every-
where ; and tins river-mark always lias the same general form.
KIVEES. 95
The steeper the mountain, the straighter are its gorges ; thu
deeper tlie trench dug by rain, the more rain-water tends to
gather in it ; the water makes a path, and follows it, and it
works faster as the work grows deeper. The mark is like V.
For this cause an ancient mountain, which has home the
In'unt of the Ijattle for a long time without the shelter of the
sea, generally is so deeply furrowed, that little of the old shape
remains. A cone, for instance, is grooved and fluted into
steep peaks and ridges which meet at the highest point where
water falls. The mountain is weathered, and becomes a rain-
mark, unless it dives imder water fur protection. The shape
is like A.
The mark which a river engTaves on a country-side is like
a flat branch. Eain-pools are leaves and buds, rills are twigs,
and rividets branches which spring from a stem whose roots
are in the delta at the sea.
The plan, at first, is a repetition of the forms of the letters
V and Y, in which straight lines meet at various angles.
But as the slope gets less, straight lines curv^e, and the stream
winds in the plain like the letter S.
Any wide landscape seen from a high moimtain, any well-
executed map or model, shows these characters which fluid
engraves upon solid. They recur in every quarter of the
globe ; m every continent, field, or gutter ; and could be read
anywhere.
The section of a gorge dug by a torrent is angular, like
V ; or the sides are perj)endicular, like U ; on a gentle slope
the section of a river bed is cmwed v "; and the curve gets
flatter as the river spreads and winds in a shallower bed, on a
smaller slope. The section of the A is a convex cur\"e '•—v,
fluted by numerous river-beds. It is a mark of deposition,
not denudation.
96 denudatkjn.
The wliole of tliese familiar I'onns result from the move-
ments of flowing water, and these result from the force which
drags water towards the eaiih's centre ; and from the resist-
ance of the crust which impedes the movement, changes its
direction, and stops it at last in some rock-basin.
The seed from which a river grows is a rain-drop. A drop
of rain falls perpendicularly in a calm on a flat stone, and
spreads every way. It strikes, rebounds, splashes, and scat-
ters. If water is poured u2:)on level glass, it spreads every
way. The form is a star *
.
The force which moved fluid towards the horizontal plane
is turned aside by resistance, and the water is pushed side-
ways, at right angles to its original direction of movement J..
Ink, dropped on boxwood, obeys the law, and draws its
own shape for the engraver.
As drops diverge, so showers s])roa(l from a mountain-top,
and rivers part IVom a watershed.
Water flowing in any ojx^n channel rebounds i'vo\n side
1<» sid(\ and from the bottom ;so a river wcai's its rocky btnl
RIVERS. 97
irregularly, but on system. Eesistance on tlie right bank
reflects the stream towards the left, and there it digs a hollow,
and swings back. Eesistance at the bottom throws the stream
upwards ; but only to fall again after drawing a convex curve.
Where the water falls, it digs a concave hole, from which it
rebounds again ; and so the river wears its bed according to
force and resistance, and in curves. On a steep slope, zigzag
movements are small in proportion to the fall ; the water
hits the side of tlie trench at a small angle, and rebounds at
one still smaller. So the mountain torrent works most at the
l)ottom, where it hews out rock pools ; leapmg from step to
step, through deep ravines, in foaming cascades.
The Ruikan Foss in Southern Norway is a good specimen
of river-work.
The rock, over which a considerable stream now falls, is a
coarse sandstone or conglomerate. The upper valley is a
rounded hollow, at the bottom of which the river has dug a
shallow trench. The upper hollow ends in a steep slope ; and
the lower valley, like the upper, is a roimded curved rock-
groove, through which the river meanders ; but the bottom of
the gi'oove is covered with beds of gravel. Both these
glens, the slope, and the surrounding hills, bear marks of
ice ; so the river did not hew out the glens ; but it has dug
a narrow trench in the slope, and it is sorting the debris in the
lower glen. The notch in the slope is 700 feet deep ; and
rounded water-marks are clearly seen on the steep walls of
the gorge, from top to bottom. The fall is working rapidly
up stream ; digging at the bottom of the pool, at the foot of
the rock ; undermining, sawmg, and working back into the
slope. It leaps out of the pool with a wild roar, and the bed
of the stream is cumbered with enormous stones. Where
undermined cliffs have fallen, long banks of talus slope down
H
T^r,-,;,t , :,:l:Nr V Y U L :>, .1 t/o/.' /:r7n,„ /7,v /;<>«.
Vu,. L'-J. Ui'iKAN Koss, SiH'Tiir.itN Norway. Sqit.
UIVEKS. 99
ti) tlie water's edge, ready to he swept away, aud sorted lower
ddwn. The tool, the mark, and the chips, are together; and
the power of the engine is displayed in the work.
On one point it is possiljle to lie on a long flat stone, look
over, and drop pebbles from the outs})read hands, 700 feet
down into the gorge.
If a fall of undermined rock chokes the stream in this big
ditch, there will be a deep lake in the slope between the glens.
The water will fall harmlessly into it, and the rate of wearing
and scene of action will change. The water will work most
below the dam, till it is removed, and then the lake will dis-
appear, and the river will Ijegin at the bottom of the old fall
again. But the sides of the trench will be angular where
fractured, or smoothed where water-worn ; the torrent-mark
will contmue like the letter U ploughed out of the bottom of
the curved glen -> y. It will always be an angle L dug out
of a slope "^ .
The Yoring Foss in the Hardanger Fjord is another not-
able specimen of river-\vork of this class.
A large stream flows from snowy mountains, amongst
which a few glaciers still nestle. It flows over an ice-gi'ound
plateau, in which it has worn a shallow bed ; but when it
reaches the sloping side of the lower valley, the stream
plimges suddenly sheer down about a thousand feet, into a
black chasm, so deep and narrow that the fall can only be
seen by looking straight do^\^l at the pool.* Great clouds of
spray dash out, and whirl up, reboundmg, and driven by a
strong w^ind caused by the fall. The spray collects on the
hiU-side, and streams do^\Ti the rocks in miniature falls, wdiicli
are blown up again. So the air in the gorge is filled with
clouds of spray, and the pool is generally invisible. AlDout
* By dropping .stones, aud timing their fall, the height was made 1100 feet.
KIVKKS. 101
noon, when the sun is clear, a traveller craning over tlie edge
sees three parts of a rainbow about a black shadow with lumi-
nous edges ; a ghost of himself, wading through white clouds,
which whirl and drift do^^^l the gorge like boiliug mist.
It is impossible to sketch a hole of this sort ; but the mark
which the river is hewing out in the hill-side is one which
could not well be mistaken for any other tool-mark. It is
the same as the mark at the Euikan Fall, L.
The vaUey into which the river leaps bears other marks,
which are as easy to read when the tool which makes them
has been seen at work. The glen was scooped out ; but rivers
are only cutting through and wearing out traces of ice. The
river-mark is more than a thousand feet deep, but it is a mere
scratch on the side of the glen in which the river flows.
Another famous Scandinavian fall is Tann Foss mJemptlan.
It is near the watershed of the country, and the frontier
between Norway and Sweden, on the road between Trondlijem
and Sundsvall, between 63° and 64° N. lat. It is not a fall in
a river ; there is no rapid above it. The water of placid nar-
rows at the end of a quiet lake suddenly tumbles over a slate
cliff, and becomes a quiet lake again, when it escapes from a
boiling pool. The fall is 120 feet high without a break. The
cliff over which it leaps is sharp, and its structure is clearly
shown where the broken horizontal beds project into the foam.
In the ver}' middle of the faU, level wath the upper lake, is a
square block of dark slate, which has resisted wear and tear
at the edge. It is called the Chest. It is told that a bear, in
trying to cross the narrows above the fall, got carried down
and landed on the Chest. There was no escape ; so, in the
extremity of his dismay, the bear screeched feai-fully. A manheard him, and taking a most unfair advantage, pelted the
102 DENUDATION.
bnite till he sprang over the fall, and drowned himself in
despair.
Peasant proprietors still pay a nominal tax for a right to
gather drowned elks and other game at this fall ; for the
smooth narrows tempt creatures to swim over, and many used
to be drowned like the bear, when game was abundant.
From the top of Areskutan, a neighbouring mountain,
which is some 3000 feet higher than the lakes, and 4000
above the sea, the work of this northern Niagara is seen to
be a mere notch chipped out of the edge of a long terraced
step, which runs along the hill-sides, north and south, for
many miles. It seems to be one of the many contour lines
which coincide in general direction with the coast of the Gulf
of Bothnia. The rock-basin, which is a lake on the upper
step, overflows ; and the waste, which is about equal in
volume to the Thames at Windsor, must have slid down the
terraced rock into the lower basin at first. It has dug an
angle now ; but it has dug less than a hundred yards into
the slate, for the original slope is entire elsewhere. It cannot
dig much deeper than the water-level of the low^er basin, for
the water guards rock.
From this northern Rhigi, a vast expanse of countiy is
seen on a clear day ; and it has the characteristic shape of
ice-ground rocks. The district is one great undulating slope
of gray rock, green forest, meadow, and corn laud ; with conical
peaks, rising here and there, and with silver lakes shining in
their rough stone setting eveiywhere. One white snow-flake,
a speck ten miles off, shows where water is foam, and a river
is grinding rock at Tann Foss.
On a calm, clear evening, in September 1850, the wude
landscape was very b(>autiful, and figures in it, and sounds in
the still air, harmonized well with the scene. A wild call
RIVERS. 103
l)lo\\ni from a bircli-bark tube rose up from a village at the
foot of the hill, and then far below, as it seemed, almost imder
foot, tiny cows, and sheep, and goats, came slowly dropping,
one by one, out of the forest into the road. Their bells tinkled
as they went streaming after a bevy of girls, poking their
noses into their hands for salt, lowing, bleating, and capering
homeward to be milked and housed.
Close at hand a family of Kojoxa {garndua infanstus), with
their bright burnt-sienna -wings, chattered and fluttered
amongst green and yellow^ birches ; and high overhead rose
the peak, white with the first snow of winter, but rosy with
the glow of sunset.
The denudation of rocks in this district is conspicuous,
and the amount is enormous. It is plain that rivers and
weathering will not account for the shape of Sweden. It is
equally plam that other engines have worked here.
On the watershed, not far from Tann Foss, at the road-
side—at a height which Eobert Chambers estimates at 2000
feet—the clearest marks of glacial action are still perfectly
fresh on rocks, in spite of weather and rivers. These marks
prove that ice travelled over the hills from N.E. to S.W., at
2000 feet above the present sea-level, at the place where
streams now part and run to the Baltic and to the Atlantic.
It is an established geological fact that Scandinavia is
rising from the sea. It is proved by marks made on stones
in the Baltic, and watched since 1731 ; and Ijy other marks.
It is evident that the hill-tops must have risen first, so
the highest fall must be the oldest. Tann Foss, working at
1000 feet above the sea, has worked longer than TroUhattan,
at about 307 feet ; and the ice-mark at 2000 feet is older than
the river-mark at Tann Foss, if it was made by floating ice.
At the famous fall of TroUhattan on the Gotlia Elf, a
104 DENUDATION.
green river as large as tlie Tlianies at London, the waste of
a great inland sea, and the drainage of a large tract of moun-
tain and forest, escapes from a rock-basin, over a shoulder of
rock, and slides down a rock-groove for about three miles.
It rolls over the edge unbroken, like a great sea-wave, and
slides down for twenty or thirty yards before it is streaked
with foam. Below the rapids, the river meanders through a
plain of boulders and drift, which partly fills the rock-groove.
The plain fades into the sea, and rounded islands of rock, of
the same pattern as the hills on shore, gradually decrease in
height and size, till they become sunken rocks, and disappear
at last under the Kattegat.
A good Toniea rapid is almost as grand as Trollhattan.
The striking feature of the place is the aljsence of river-
marks. Denudation, worked by water, is insignificant. There
is no section, no cliff, no step L worn in the slope. Troll-
hattan is a slide, not a fall. It is but a baby in geological
time.
The country is well known to the writer ; it is well de-
scribed by Eobert Chambers in the Edinburgh Journal, K S.,
1849.
From Stockholm to Gotheborg, from Malmo to Christiania,
glens, mounds, and hills, are ice-ground rocks of one pattern.
Speaking generally, ridges and hollows, rock-grooves and
river-courses, rock-basins and lakes large and small, stretch
N.E. and S.W. ; and in many places stria^, are fresh on the
rocks, and point the same way.
At Christiania serpulaB adhere to rocks which are now 186
feet above the sea-level. AVlien these shells lived where their
mortal remains are found, the sea was over the rock.
At Uddevalla, further south, a bed of sea-shells is found in
a bank of gravel about 200 feet above tlie sea.
RIVERS. 105
At Saq)sborg sea-plants have l^een found twenty miles in-
land, and at a level of 450 feet*
Bvit a sea 500 feet deeper would join the GuK of Bothnia,
the AVettern and Wenem, the Kattegat, Skagerrack, and the
German Ocean ; sink Denmark, drown most of southern
Scandinavia, abolish Trollhattan, and stop the German war.
So Trollliattan only became a water-slide, and began to
grind rocks about the time when sea-shells and plants died
for want of sea-water at Sarpsborg, Uddevalla, and Christiania.
The river-mark is a measure of time, for the fact is
established that this river began to slide when the lip of the
rock-basin rose above the sea-level.
In Glen Yjne, in Scotland, are similar gorges dug by
moimtain-toiTcnts in the sides of roimded hills.
The Eagle's Fall, above Ardkingias, is not less than 300
feet high, and it falls into a wild precipitous gash like the bed
of the Voring Foss ; but the gash is scarcely seen from the
valley below, which was scooped out by some other engine.
There is scarce a glen or roimded hill in Scotland which
has not some modern river-work upon its steep sides, to con-
trast with wider, deeper, and older marks of denudation.
There are numerous marks which prove beyond dispute that
Scotland has risen from the sea, and that many of her water-
falls were born after the death of shells which are buried on
hill-sides.
Farther north, about lat. 66° in Lulea Lappmark, is a fall
wliich is famous all over the district, but wliich no English-
man has yet described. The Lapps call it Njoammel Saskas,
or the hare's leap, because a hare can spring over a large
river where it has dug a trench in solid rock.
* For details, see Chambers. The papers are very true and amusing pic-
tures of Scandina\aan travel, and geologically valuable.
lOG DENUDATIOX.
Still further north, about lat. lif, a large river whicli drains
the great Enare Trask, leaps down a fall in a narrow gorge
whicli it has sawn through rocks. The country retains marks
of glaciation over five degrees of latitude, between the polar
basin and the Gulf of Bothnia.
All the large Swedish rivers, without exception, have one
character ; they have done very little denudation since they
began to saw through ice-ground rocks ; and wdiat they have
done is work of one pattern, more or less advanced, and most
advanced at the highest level.
If the value of the unit could be found, the amount of
river-work done might be measured from the ice-gromid sur-
face, and dimensions converted into geological time.
In Iceland, where streams work on igneous rock, the tor-
rent carves the same pattern. At Melar, in the north, a small
river leaps down a steep hill-side. It has made a succession
of falls, with deep rock-pools and rock-pits. The rock is
bedded trap, traversed by whin dykes, l)ut the pattern of the
river-bed is the same as in Welsh slate.
At the Devil's Bridge near Aberystwith a stream has sawed
a groove in blue slate. It is ninety feet deep, and about six
wide. The smooth water-worn surface is fresh from top to
bottom on both sides of the groove, and at the bottom, in tin;
bed of the stream, there is no joint or fracture to be seen. The
whole is a river-mark, a trench sawn 1jy running water straight
down into the slope of compact slate which some other
denuding agent wore out before the river began. The ri\nilet
has but ])louglied a groove at the bottom of a curve ; it has
turned V into Y. Kiver-marks are the same everywhere, and
tliis is the mark of a moimtain-torrent L.
But drift and sea-shells have l)een found on Welsh hills
at a height wliich would sink the; hills at the Devil's Bridge
RIVERS. 107
far under the sea, and all Wales is ice-groimd. So this tor-
rent, like the rest, had a beginning, and from that the begin-
ning of the groove must date.
The highest fall in Europe is that of Gavenii, in the
PjTenees. In descending the pass which leads from Spain
into France, it is seen about four miles up a valley to the
right. It is amongst the wildest of rocks and moimtains,
and there does not seem to be a tree within miles of it. In
September 184:2 new-fallen snow reached down to the
verge of the cliff, and early frosts kept the stream low. The
fall seemed little more than a white thread on the dark rock
face, but the water feU unbroken to the bottom except at one
spot where it touched. In this it is tmlike the Staubach
in Switzerland, wliich, though lower, reaches the bottom as a
shower of spray. The river at Gavemi is of considerable size,
but the river-work is as nothing to the glen which some
graving tool had sculptured before the river began to fall
over the cliff.
High up in the P\Tenees are tiny glaciers, and the glens
bear the marks of old ice.
Eivers have done similar work in Spain.
At Eonda, a smaU stream, which was almost dry^ in Jime
1842, runs through a trench hewn in sandstone. It is a
strange water-worn barranco cumbered with big stones,
amongst which Spanish washerwomen do their best to rinse
clothes. Tlie sides are so steep that the river-bed can only be
reached at a few places. It is so narrow that a small bridge,
with a single Moorish arch, joins the two sides. Emergang
from this narrow groove, the water leaps down several L steps
cut in the sandstone rift, and through the cliff; it passes
under the famous Eonda Bridge, turns several mills, and
finally winds off through a lower plain, marking its course
108 DENUDATION.
with verdure. The town is entoreJ from the upper plain, and
this great cliff and chasm are so little seen that three seedy
travellers spent a hot day in a venta a hundred yards from
the great bridge, voting Washington Irving's description of
the place to be a sheer invention. It is, in fact, one of the
strangest places in Europe—a town built on a kind of rocky
island, on a cliff which a mountain stream has sawed off from
a raised plain, with a broken edge.
Some other tool must have carved the Spanish hills, and
at Granada snow and ice still glitter above the hot plain, on
the peaks of the Sierra Nevada. In the plains are beds of
clay, which look very like ice-work.
In the Morea it is the same. The beds of torrents are
grooves with steep sides ; the glens through which the rivers
flow are wide rounded hollows, and on high mountains near
Cape Matapan and above Sparta, snow-wreaths still outlast
summer heats. In Syi'ia are old moraines.
In the Alps, where glaciers abound, rivers often run long
courses, beneath ice roofs. They do the work of rivers loaded
with ice-floats, and the glaciers work beside the rivers, which
flow with them in rock-grooves.
Old marks of larger glaciers are found in large rounded
glens, on the banks of brawling streams, which are sawing
narrow trenches at the bottom of every glen. A good col-
lection of photographs will best show these forms, and they
are common now-a-days.
In Iceland, where glaciers are far larger than Alpine gla-
ciers, many rivers and their marks are peculiar.
Enormous tracts are covered with vast snow-heaps and
glaciers, and though the surface of this upper system of beds
is tolerably even, the next series below it—the shattered igne-
ous rocks upon which the glaciers rest—must have a surface of
RIVERS. 109
hill and dale like neighbouring districts where tlie upper
series is absent.
The water series deposited from air is fusible at ordinary
temperatures, and it is constantly melting, if it is constantly
growing from above. In summer, the surface melts, because
a hot sun shines down upon it. The undermost layers are
always melting slowly, because the ground is warm. Whenthe earth-light shines out ; when a volcanic eruption bursts
forth under the snow ; when the earth's internal heat radiates
upwards more than usual, the snow turns to water and steam.
The water flies back to the clouds, or sinks as far as it can,
through snow, neve ice, and shattered lava. It flows down
hill like other water, gathers in glens and valleys, bursts
through passes imder ice and lava roofs, and comes to light at
last a full-grown river.
Large rivers are hidden througliout long courses, and
burst out of ice-caves to fall into the sea after a daylight
course of a few miles.
The rivers which drain the country which lies under
Myrdals Jokull, and the Vatna Jokull, are of this kind.
The glaciers approach the sea, and their drainage is in
proportion to their great size and nature. A mass of frozen
water as wide as Yorkshire, and many thousands of feet
thick, when exposed to a hot sun, or when a flood of lava
spouts up into it, sends down streams of muddy water, larger
than rivers which flow from tracts of equal area elsewhere.
Many Icelandic rivers are in fact as broad as they are
long, and run their whole daylight course over a delta.
These are always difficult to ford. Travellers pass them
guided by men who know the district, mounted upon ponies
used to wading, which are called " water-horses." A string of
ponies, loose, or loaded with baggage and riders, are tied head
110 DENUDATION.
uiid tail ; and the train, led by the water-horse, crosses over
the delta, up one side, and down the other ; wading, sinking,
scrambling, sometimes even swimming ; sometimes on dry
sand-banks, fording for a distance of several miles. Some-
times the river-bed has ice upon it under water. When the
horses tread on one side, the stream gets under the npper
edge of the broken ice, and great plates rise up and turn over
and slap down, as if to crush the rider. Sometimes the lead-
ing horse sinks up to his girths in a quicksand, and it takes
a cool head and a skilled guide to know what to do in riding
over such an imusiial ridge of country. The plan of the tract
is A, the section ^—^.
In spring these broad fords are impassable. The water is
too deep and strong even for Icelandic ponies to stem ; and it
is cumbered by great blocks of ice, which fall from the glacier,
and float out to sea—no creature could live in such a torrent.
The bed of these subglacial rivers must be like the beds
of other rivers, but their banks must be very different. In
the hollow glens through which they now flow, will be traces
of denudation of two kinds, if the ice melts. Marks will show
the wearing of rocks, by a river loaded with ice-floats, mud,
and stones, and also the work of heavy land-ice, which a
cliange of climate may cause to vanish altogether from this
region.
Wlien an eruption takes place water-floods do marvellous
work in a very short time, for the rate of denudation changes.
Farms are obliterated ; houses, cattle, land-marks, men and
their works, are swept away like a heap of rubbish ; and the
sea-bed is filled near the shore with large banks and heaps of
debris, sorted by water, in water.
If ice were gone, volcanoes extinct, eruptions forgotten, and
the sea-bottom raised higher, it would be hard to account for
TJIVERS. Ill
hills of debris which skirt some parts of the Icelandic coast,
and which seem to have been formed in this way.
They are monuments of fire and frost, denudation and de-
position, and they must contain records of sea and land, con-
fusetUy mingled, though packed in layers.
In Greenland and in Spitzbergen, according to tlie descrip-
tions of travellers who have visited these regions, subglacial
rivers find their way into the sea without showing their
dirty faces in daylight anywhere. A sea discoloured for miles
is the only symptom of the stream which must be sawing
rocks under ice as it does in the open air.
The beds of such streams can only be got at by inference,
but the inference is plain.
From Greenland to Iceland, from Iceland to Scandinavia,
thence to the British Isles, and to Cape Matapan, there is one
connected series of cause and effect. The engine is working
at one place, the marks are at another, but engines and marks
are side by side at many places, and the marks of rivers are
plain every^\diere.
North and south, east and west, European river-marks are
alike, and bear witness to the fact that rivers have done very
little geological grinding since they began to flow down Euro-
pean rocks.
In many places in Iceland rivers are subterranean. The
dramage waters of large tracts of coimtry sink bodily into the
riven porous earth, and not a drop is to be seen on the sur-
face. On Hecla and the lava-plains to the north there
is no water in summer, but clear cold streams burst out at a
place called the Springs, near the foot of Hecla. Hot springs
burst out at many places, and the plains which lie between
the sea and cliffs of igneous rock, all round the island, are
bogs which rival the worst in Connemara. There is hardly
112 DENUDATION.
any water to be found aliout SkjaldbreiS. There is no river
of any size to feed the lake at Tliiugvalla, but a very large
river runs out of the lake.
Wliat the beds of these underground streams may be like
is not easy to guess, but probably they resemble underground
rivers elsewhere, and some of these may be got at.
In Park Mine, near Wrexham, the corirse of a subterranean
river was cut in looking for lead. It can be got at by scramli-
Irng, and it is a curious place. A large cavern is water-
marked from top to bottom, and old sand-beaches in passages
mark a water-level fifty or sixty feet above the stream. T1k>
stone is drilled into the most fantastic shapes—oval windows,
peep-holes through which candles glimmer and water shines;
handles to grip, peaks and pillars are common, but there is no
straight Ime or flat plane or acute angle, except where stones
have fallen ; and fallen stones remain where they fell. The
rock is mountain limestone, capped by millstone-grit ; and
rain-water, which contains carbonic acid, melts limestone,
slowly, as water melts salt. In the bed of the stream are
pebbles washed from a distance. A clear murmuring brook
can be followed for a great way up stream ; down stream it
plunges into a hole, and disappears with a roar. It breaks
into Minera Mine lower down, and where all the water goes
at last no one seems to know or care, so that it is got rid of
In some of these underground worlds l)eds of silieious fossil
shells are washed out of the lime, and look like shells stuck
in a beach. N"o human hands could dig them from their
tombs as water does.
In limestone all over the world caves with subterranean
rivers are common.
In Yorkshire are many. In the Alps, streams leap from
holes in steep cliffs. Near Trieste a large stream flows into a
RIVERS. 113
cave in a hill-side, and ten miles off a stream of the same size
runs out of another cave. One pool is seen in the famous
Addlesberg cavern, which has now been explored for many
miles. It was known for three miles in 1841. It is an old
river-mark filling with lime ; a wonderful grotto, hung with
glittering white festoons and pendants, and paved with white
marble, which rain-water extracts from the hill through wliicli
it strains, and leaves in the cave when it gets to air and
evaporates.
But the pool, with its strange creatures, the bed where
water flows, is like a pool in the free air, and it is worn like
the river-bed in Park Mine. Eiver-marks under the earth are
like river-marks on the surface, when they can be got at ; so,
probably, river-marks under lava are like those of other Ice-
landic rivers.
On small slopes sidelong movements are greater in pro-
portion to fall. The resistance is greatest at the bottom, and
the downward movement is more easily reflected as the fall
decreases. A liill-stream works most at the sides, where there
is least resistance. The vmdermined rock slides, falls, and
breaks ; the bed of the stream is choked with fallen debris;
there are many rapids and pools, but few falls ; and the river-
bed curves like the curving stream which makes it. But the
shape of the trench depends on the fracture of the rock through
which the river has made a way.
On a gentle slope the fall is less, and resistance the same.
The stream is pushed on rather than dragged down, and it
swings from side to side. It works as it moves, wearing the
banks more than the bed.
There are many windings in a plain, few deep pools, and
a smooth bed ; there is smooth water and bad fishing ; and
114 DENUDATION.
the work done by the river is chiefly tlie sorting of chips
In-ought down from rock-grooves in the hills.
Every Etonian knows how streams work in their beds;
for rowing and swimming teach the lesson.
The Thames flows eastward on a gentle slope, and does
IVest. /. ?
Fig. 24. The Thames.
Sketfhcfl from the top of the Round Tower, Windsor, If
not trace a straight line, l)nt winds like a snake throngh the
green fields.
From " the Eushes " to " Upper Hope " the river curves
very slightly southwards, and the depth is tolerably even on
both sides. But it is greatest on the northern side, which is
the outside of the curve, where the water moves fastest. There
the bank is steep, the bottom clear, and the stream rapid. On
lavERS. 115
tlie south side there is a slielving bank, a muddy bottom, ami
Fathins-p^ftir.
I 'tfer Hope.
Bathing-pin.
u.u.4^,^-}^-^'^'-'^*^'
[ "Tir;- Hope.
SehLiyns Fush. ^^X ' " •- - C "^-e^ ^- / -^^
Fir.. :;.:;. Diagram to illustrate the movements of WaBETWEEN THE RUSHES AND WINDSOR.
IIG DENUDATION.
dead water. So boats rowing up stream keep the southern
bank, and brush the northern on their way down.
The water is swinging eastwards round a point some-
where to the soutli ; the river is workmg northwards along
the circumference of the curve, and -sviiting part of the
k'tter S.
At Upper Hope the main stream has dug " into the
northern bank so far as to make the curve shorter. It
strikes harder upon a higlicr bank, imdermines it more, and
relDOimds faster to the other side, which it reaches at Lower
Hope.
Boats ascending cross the stream at Lower Hope, brush
tlie willow bushes with their oars, and scrape the gravel to
keep in the dead water near the southern bank. But on the
way back they cross the bay at Upper Hope, hug the
northern bank, and shoot down with a rapid stream.
The river flows south and works east between the Hopes,
and it swings round a jDoint on the west.
At Lower Hope, the maui stream shoots over to the
southern bank, which it undermines ; and thence it rebounds,
swingmg on the outside of a gentle curve, about some point
to the north, and circling in miniature whirlpools as it slides
along the steep clay bank ; till it swings away, and across to
the "Brocas" at Bargeman's Bush.*
Ascending boats cross at Bargeman's, and hug tlie north-
ern bank as far as Lower Hope, keeping the inside of the
curve, where there is dead water, and a muddy bottom ; and
wlien they return they keep in the stream.
Between Lower Hope and Bargeman's Bush the river is
working southwards, away from the northern point about
which it circles ; it is writing the otlier half of the letter S ;
* Now demolished.
RIVERS. 117
and from tlie round tower at Windsor, the whole silver letter
is seen upon its emerald gromid.
From Bargeman's Bush to Brocas clump the stream digs
into the northern bank, and curves about a southern pomt.
And so the Thames swings from side to side throughout its
whole course. It is always gnawing into its banks north-
wards and southwards as it flows east ; but there is scarce a
rock to be seen in the river. The valley of the Thames is
half-full of chips, for some other engine had hollowed the
valley, and filled it with drift and gravel before the river
began to dig.
The Thames is a type of streams flowing on a gentle slope;
and ocean-currents swing between their banks on the same
plan. The rain which streams along the roadway on Windsor
bridge after a shower ; the Thames, the Oxera on its lava bed,
the smallest and tlie biggest, the oldest and the newest
streams, all dig on one principle, and do similar work.
Eiver steamers, canoes, boats, and boatmen ; Indians, Lapps,
and fish, all work up stream on the same plan as an Eton
Funny.
The sculler or s^^^mnler who knows the stream has the
best chance in a race, and gets on best in strange lands and
waters. The geologist who tries to imderstand the work of
large cuiTents may learn a lesson from small streams.
Salmon-fishers must study the nature of rivers, or they
will have sorry sport. Fish haunt particular parts of tlieir
domains, for good reasons ; and he who knows the reasons
knows where to look for fish. They cannot rest in strong
currents, so they avoid them ; unless there be nice stones or
rocks at the bottom, to give shelter from the water gale.
They do not like to rest in shallows, for they cannot
there be hid from their foes in the air. In dead water there
118 DENUDATION.
is mutl, and no sup])ly of I'resli eatables drifting- about ; and
a salmon is an aristocrat who hates ploughing in dirt, and
likes to have his dinner brought to him in a clean place.
So tish hang about pools where the water is rough and
deep enough to hide them ; and they choose particular spots,
where there is stream to bring game, but not too much for the
gentleman's comfort.
A salmon likes to have a cool breeze of clear, fresh, well-
aired water blowing in his face ; and he rests in his nook
poised on his fins, like a gull, or a hawk, or an osprey, float-
ing head to wind behind a cliff, high in the air. And there
he puffs, and champs his white jaws, and rolls his unwinking
eyes, and wags his broad tail, till something worth having
appears. Then the doser awakes ; and, with a sudden rush,
the glittering silver sportsman dashes out, open-mouthed,
with every fin spread like a fan, and every muscle tight and
quivering ; and when he has snapped his hooked jaws upon
some nice mofsel, he glides back into his place, and waits for
more. If he has taken a sham fly, wdtli a sharp hook in its
tail, strike home when he turns. If he has missed, give him
a rest, and try again.
An old fly-fisher knows the look of places where fish
a1)ide, even in strange rivers, for surface-forms indicate sub-
merged obstructions. In his own ground, he knows every
corner of every pool, every shallow and hole, stone and eddy
in it. So river-marks are familiar to fishermen, who are
always watching the flow of water, and the work which it
does ; and the sportsman who knows most gets most sport.
A still-net-fisher plants his snares in the way of travelling
fish, and chooses his station liy the run of the stream. Nets
and spearing stages set in the Tana and Tornea are planted
by Lapps and Quains in the way of ascending boats. Fish
K IVERS. 119
and boatmen strive to avoid the strongest stream, and cross
at the same places. Fishermen know the stream, and the
shape of its bed, by waves on the surface. The work of the
river depends on its movements, so the nets mark out the
run of the stream.
Floating bodies follow the stream, and show its move-
ments. If floats carve marks, they show the course of the
stream which moved the floats.
It used to be a time-honoured Eton custom for the long
boats to muster once or twice in the spring, row up to the
Eushes, and drift down, while the crews sang.
The captain in the " Tenoar," five or six " Eights," some
" Sixes" and " Fours," and all the " Funnies" and double and
single scullers that could get up in time, joined the fleet, and
lay on their oars in a thick cluster ; while some musical
" wet bob" chanted verses, and the whole of the crews roared
the chorus. A favourite performance was
—
Rule Britannia,
Britannia rules the waves,
Britons, never, never, never, never, never, will be slaves.
It was a grand song ; but Old Father Thames would not
be ruled. He never would cany Britannia's sons directly
home, or keep their boats in their stations, or even follow his
own curved bed. At first, boats to the north forged ahead,
and swung their sterns to the bank ; those to the south hung
back, the long boats whirled slowly roimd, and bumped and
jostled as they floated. The concert was varied by cries of
" Paddle on easy"—" Pull round, bow"—" Back-water, stroke"
—or " Bow, side oars in the water."
But when the musical squadron had passed the bathing-
place at Athens, and had reached Upper Hope, where the
120 DENUDATION.
stream runs fvill tilt at the bank, the crews had to row to
avoid shipwi-eck.
The first part of the concert ended with a thundering
rattle of oars in the rollocks by way of applause ; nearly a
hundred oars dipped into the water, and the captain's word
was " Paddle on easy to Lower Hope." There it was, " Bowside, paddle hard," and " pull round."
Then the concert began again. The brown swaim gathered
into a cluster, and covered the whole breadth of the stream;
while " George Barnwell," Black-eyed Susan," " God save the
Queen," and similar lays, were performed with the usual ap-
plause, and under the same difficulties.
But on this reach the movements were reversed.
The northern boats hung back, the southern drifted ahead,
and the long boats slewed round against the sim.
It was " Pull round, stroke side—back-water, bow," for the
stems were always trying to pass the bows, by scraping against
the sovithem bank, while shoving the bows across the river
into dead water.
The water whirled as it ilowed, and it whirled the floating
boats. It turned them with the sun, from left to right—east,
south, west, north ; with the hands of a watch, where the
river curved, simwise, eastwards, and about a southern point
;
from the Pushes to Lower Hope. But small whirlpools on
that reach turned the other way, on the outside of the curve,
because the bank holds the water back. The boats turned
against the hands of a watch and widershins where the river
curved eastward, and about a northern point, between Lower
Hope and Bargemans ; and there small whirlpools and floats
of froth revolve, simwise, under the high bank.
By watching these, similar movements on a larger scale
mav be understood. Corrie Bhreacan and the Maelstrom
CRS.
"
121
are but larger whirlpools in a larger stream, and circular
storms revolve ou the same principle as a whirlpool in a mill-
race.
Wliat boats tell about movements in a stream is tested Ijy
swimming in it. Many a hot summer hour pleasantly spent
in the cool Thames ; many a long swim from the Eushes to
the Brocas, and from bank to bank at every bathing station;
long dives in the pools—have made this bit of river-bed fami-
liar to all bathing Etonians.
Elsewhere they find that wliicli is true of one stream to
be true of all
That which is tiaie of boats and swimmers is true of other
floating bodies ; of trees and ships, ice-floes, icebergs, and
clouds.
In Scandmavia are vast forests, in which a harvest of so-
called " Norway deals" is reaped
The reapers live in the open air for months at a time, and
brave great hardship, and some danger ; for pines often grow
in chinks, in the face of high rocks, where it is impossible to
get at them without a rope.
Hardy Norsemen and Swedes fell the pines, hew off the
branches, and roll and di-ag the trimks to the nearest water.
Once launched, the logs find their own way to saw-mills;
and sometimes they drift about in lakes and roll in streams
for several years before they anive.
Many get water-logged and sink ; and these may be seen
strewed in hundreds upon the bottom, far down in clear
green lakes.
Many get stranded in the mountain gorges, and span the
torrent like bridges ; others get planted like masts amongst
the boulders ; others sail into quiet bays, and rest side by side
upon soft mud.
122 DENUDATION.
But ill spriiiy, when the Hoods are up, another class of
woodmen follow the logs, and drive on the lingerers.
They launch the bridges and masts and stranded rafts,
help them through the lakes, and push them into the stream;
and so from every twig on the branching river, floats gather
as the river gathers on its way to the sea.
Sometimes great piles of timber get stranded, jammed,
and entangled upon a shallow, near the head of a narrow
rapid ; and then it is no easy or safe employment to start them.
Men armed with axes, levers, and long slender boat-hooks,
shoot down in crazy boats, and clamber over slippery stones
and rocks to the float ; where they wade and crawl about
amongst the trees, to the danger of life and limb. They
work with might and main at the base of the stack ; hacking,
dragging, and pushing, till the whole mound gives way, and
rolls and slides, rumbling and crashing, into the torrent, where
it scatters and rushes onwards.
It is a sight worth seeing ; the power of a float, moved by
water, begins to tell, and denudation is seen in progress.
The brown shoal of trees rush like living things into the
white water, and charge full tilt, end on, straight at the first
curve in the bank. There is a hard bump and a vehement
jostle ; for there are no crews to paddle and steer tliese floats.
The dashing sound of raging water is varied by the deep musi-
cal notes of the battle between wood and stone. Water
pushes wood, tree urges tree, till logs turn over, and whirl
round, and rise up out of the water, and sometimes even snap
and splinter like dry reeds.
The rock is broken and crushed and dinted at the water-
line by a whole fleet of battering-rams, and the square ends
of logs are rounded ; so both comliatants retain marks of the
strife.
RIVEKS. 123
The movements of ice are the same.
At one mill at Christiansand, 70,000 trees thus Hoated
down are sawii up every year ; and there are many other
mills in the town ; so the work done upon rock by floating-
timber is on a considerable scale.
The work done by river-ice is greater, but similar. The
rocks are worn at the water-line, and undermined ; and when
they fall, there remains a perpendicular or jagged broken
bank.
About ten miles from the town, at Vigelund, at another
large saw-mill, there is a fall in the Torisdals river, where the
lateral and vertical whirling of flowing water, and its action
upon floats and rocks, is well seen.
Above the fall it has been found necessary to protect the
rock from floating bodies, so as to preserve the run of the
stream. It threatened to alter its course, and leave the mill
dry, for the rock was wearmg rapidly.
It is a good salmon station, and a temptmg spot for a
sketcher to watch in summer.
At every moment some new arrival comes sailing down
the rapid, pitches over the fall, and dives into a foaming
green pool, where hundreds of other logs are revolving, and
whirling about each other in creamy froth. The new comer
first takes a header, and dives to some imknown depth ; but
presently he shoots up in the midst of the pool, rolls over and
over, and shakes himself till he finds his level ; and then he
joins the dance.
There is first a slow sober glissade eastwards, across the
stream, to a rock which bears the mark of many a hard blow;
there is a shuffle, a concussion, and a retreat, foUowed by a
pirouette smiwise, and a sidelong sweep northwards, up
stream towards the fall. Then comes a vehement whirling over
12-i DENUDATION.
and over ; or if the tree gets his head under the fall, there is a
somersault, like a performance m the Hailing dance. That is
followed by a rush sideways and westward, where there is a
long fit of setting to partners mider the lee of a big rock.
Then comes a simultaneous rush southwards, towards the rapid
which leads to sea, and some logs escape and depart; hut the
rest appear to be seized by some freak, and away they all
slide eastwards again across the stream to have another bout
with the old battered pudding-stone rock below the saw-mill.
And so for hours and days logs whirl one way—in this case
against the sun—below the fall, and they dash against the
rounded walls of the pool, leaving their mark.
Lower down, near the sea, is a long fiat reach between
high roimded cliffs ; and there these mountaineers, fioating on
to be sawn up, form themselves into a solemn funeral procession
which extends for mdes.
But the curve of this stream of fioats is always greater
than the curve of the river's bed ; for the water is slowly
swinging from side to side as it flows, and the fioats show the
course of the stream, and its whirling eddies. Many marks
which remain in rocks in this great valley are clearly not
marks of this wearing agency. They were neither made by
trees nor 1 )y river-ice.
A practised swimmer who knows what he is al)out, and
leaps head-foremost down a small cascade, is carried down-
wards with great rapidity, and is then shot upwards to the
surfiice, a long way down stream, where he can swim safely to
land.
It is ])leasant thus to dash through water like a iish ; to
feel tlie eddies and the tickling air bul)bl('S, and to hear the
many sounds of tlie gurgling river. It is pleasant on a sum-
mer's day to dive through a cascade, and sit behind the water
RIVERS. 125
screen, and watch the flickering liglit amongst swarms of sum-
mer flies whieli there abide ; but the swimmer who gets out
of the run of the water may fare ill, for he drifts round like a log
;
and if he struggles with the power which is stronger than he,
he may whirl till he sinks, or knocks his head against a stone
and drowns.
But the diver learns to know the movements of water
beneath the surface, and the surface forms which indicate
them ; and he can apply his knowledge elsewhere.
A geologist who wants to know how rivers work upon
their beds may profit by the exjierience of boatmen, fisher-
men, lumberers, and swimmers ; for he must learn the move-
ments of fluids, before he can safely pronounce upon work done
by them.
As fluids move in curves, marks which they make are
curved also ; and as water works very slowly, and follows every
inequality, water-marks are fine and smooth, though irregular.
The finished work is like the polish which a carpenter gives
to a surface with his hand, after he has formed it and smoothed
it with rougher tools.
Projecting angles in the bed of a stream are polished and
rounded, but they are not rubbed off.
Eock-pools, and all water-worn hollows, retain irregulari-
ties. Sometimes deep round holes are drilled in hard rocks,
below falls, and on the sea-shore ; but these are not simply
water-marks. They are marks which water makes by moving
solids, and the tools used are often left in holes made with
them. Eock-pits often contain round stones, sand, and water.
A river, then, is always working slowly downwards and
up stream, changing a V into Y, by digging trenches, dril-
ling holes, and undermining rocks over which it flows ; and an
ocean-stream works on the same principle.
126 DENUDATION.
But marks which tiowing water engraves upon rock during
a man's wliole life are as nothing.
The Oxera has not deepened its bed two feet since the
history of Icehxnd began. The Thames has not changed its
course smce Magna Charta was signed, though the Thames
works on gravel. What rivers and seas have done is not
matter of observation but of inference for short-lived men.
Still water may be set to sculpture soft materials, and the
touch and the work done may then be compared with similar
work on any scale or material done anywhere during any
period of time. Having found a power, it may be set to
work.
Fig. 20. Vicrtioal Edpiks in Air and Watrr.
The tank figured abo\'e shows liow streams move verti-
cally.
Let a slieet of glass be sloped in clear water, and (b'op
ink, milk, or water charged with ])ipeclay upon the upper edge
of the glass. The heavy fluid sinks, and rolls slowly down the
slope, through the clear still fluid. The upper edge of tlu;
stream curls and rolls back, and every movement is clearly
seen. When a breeze passes a fixed chimney, or when a
steamer moves through a calm, the same forms and eddies are
seen in smoke. Wlierever a moving fluid passes through
RIVERS. 127
fluid at rest, there are similar vertical eddies ; and though they
are invisible they often leave their marks.
Horizontal eddies are seen behind every stick in a stream.
The woodcut is from a sketcli made in London. The
square stands for a post, the lines and arrows show the paths
described by bubbles floating on the Tliames. But the laws
Fio. 27. Horizontal Eddies in running Water.
which controlled the movements of these tiny floats and
streams would hold good though the post were an island, the
stream an ocean-current, and the floats ice-floes. Where such
floats leave marks they are drawn on a similar plan.
There are vertical and horizontal eddies, whirlpools, and
wliirlwinds, in the atmosphere and in the ocean ; and all
streams and moving floats flow and move on the same
principles.
Similar curves appear in a tea-cup when stirred with a
spoon, in a mill-stream, and in the Thames ; they are seen in
a strait, from a hill-top, where a rapid tide is flowing amongst
an archijDelago of rocky islands ; they are described by a stream
of molten iron ; their tracks are on ancient hUls.
There are eddies in streams moving through fluid at rest,
or past pebble, post, rock, island, point, or simken continent
;
in air moving past a chimney, a volcano, an ice-peak ; or
rolling north and south from pole to pole.
128 • DENUDATION.
But the movements of all streams may be learned by
studying the run of water in rivers ; and stream-marks may he
learned from working models.
The following simple experiments will imitate river-
marks :
—
1. Mix fine pipeclay in water, and place a sheet of glass
at the bottom of the vessel which contains the mixture.
After a few minutes raise the glass slowly out of the water,
and there remains a film of wet clay upon plane glass. Slope
the glass to let water drain slowly off, and in half an hour the
clay on the glass will be marked by flowing water as clay is
marked by streams in the great valley wliich stretches sea-
wards between Hecla and Eyafjalla, or similar alluvial plains
elsewhere. Water clears channels on glass, and leaves clay
islands ; and the resultmg forms are those which are seen from
the liigh ground whence Gunnar looked upon his favourite
glen, and where he sleejjs in his cairn. They are the same
everywhere : the plane glass is a plan of a plain through
which a stream meanders.
2. Vary the experiment by pouring thicker mud into
clear water, to represent a quiet lake or sea into which
a river falls. The descending current is seen whirling
clay-clouds into beautiful curves, as it pushes through the
clear still water ; but when the movement has ceased, the
glass at tlie bottom is covered with a thin even layer of clay,
liaise and slope the glass at various angles, and river-forms of
various curvatures re-appear.
3. Slope a square foot of glass, and pour fine mud over it,
till the glass is covered with a pretty thick stratum of even
consistency. Stick a luni]) of clay at one corner, and h^t
clear water, and water cobjured with brown ochre, drij) slowly
upon it.
lUVEKS. 129
Flowing wattT digs out channels and colours them ; and
the resulting forms are those which mark tlie great bogg^y
plains which suiTound the igneous rocks of Iceland ; and simi-
lar plains elsewhere.
The model is like a map. The work of centuries of slow
action on one scale, is done in miniature in half an hour;
time and quantity differ, but mechanical forces, materials,
movements, and resulting forms are the same.
4. Build a heap of clay on a garden walk, and pour water
upon it ; or throw clay upon the roof of a house where rain
may fall upon it—and the work of denudation will soon begin
naturally upon miniature plains of mud, deposited in hollows
on the gToimd, but washed from the roof. The larger the
experiment the longer is the time ; but the tool-marks of all
streams are alike.
5. Change the course of a rivulet—turn it loose in a dry
field, or on a sea-beach—and watch its proceedmgs day by day.
When it digs a new course in a bed of compact stiff clay, all
the marks which water leaves upon solid rock will be copied
in miniature in a week.
Time extends as quantity grows ; but the miniature work
having been seen in progTcss, like work can be referred to
its cause whatever the quantity may be.
Denudation, the wearing away of solids which do not fuse
at temperatures which now prevail at the earth's surface, is
caused by certain definite movements—upward, sideways, and
downward—in gases and fluids which do not permanently
solidify at these temperatures.
The movements result from the action of radiating and
converging forces, which, by moving gases and fluids, wear
away and destroy previously existing solid forms, and construct
others.
K
130 DENTUATIoN.
The iiioviug- I'orcL'S appear tu l)e heat and weight ; so the
marks made by weathering and rivers are their marks.
Till the contrary is shown, it may he assumed that like
results have followed from the action of these two mechanical
forces ever since they first l)egan to move gases and fluids, and
wlierever there was a solid to he worn liv rivers and floats.
Fit;. 'iS. A Salmon Cast in the Finuhorn. riiotoKiaiihed 1S5S.
A liviT \vlitill^' tlic letters, and cutting a u-gmove in old stratilicd rocks, k, TI
place where he lies. Ii, Smooth water-worn rock, c, Clifl's undernniied and fractured.
CHAPTER XL
. DENUDATION 3—FROST-MAI!KS—WEATHERING.
It has heen shown above, ami it is fainiliarly known, that
water, in freezing and crystallizing—in changing from a tiuid
to a solid—increases in Imlk, and exerts a force which reacts
on other substances. Because ice is abundant on the
earth's surface, it is a geological engine ; as it has the same
qualities everywhere, its action may be learned from small
experiments.
A glass jar, on which rust had lieen deposited from a
solution, was scoured clean in a hard frost. Ice crystals
formed next to the glass, which was next to the cold air ; and
the crystals thrust themselves in between the two solids,
and so thrust them apart. The solid rust was driven inwards,
leaving an angular pattern of clean glass, i)icked out with
lines of brown powder.
This was neither the force of heat, nor that of weight ; but
attraction and repulsion of some kind, which acted on matter
when heat and weight had placed it, and prepared it for
crystallization. It is a force which seems to act differentl}'
on every substance which takes the form of a crystal ;for
crystals are of many shapes, and their study is a separate
branch of science.
They have this hi common—they all grow larger liy addi-
tions from without ; so they result from forces which move
particles towards a centre, and pack them about a ])oint or
132 DENUDATION.
axis, and in pailicular lurms. They form in (luids and dis-
perse in solids at certain temperatures.
It seems to be this packing which reacts on other sub-
stances ; and so the force of crystallization acts like a
wedge.
The shape of a portmanteau changes when it is stuffed.
If a corked bottle filled with water is exposed to frost,
the glass bursts when the water freezes ; for the water parti-
cles are differently packed in the ciystal ball.
A strong glass bottle imcorked does not always burst
wlien water in it freezes solid ; but ice is squeezed out of tlie
neck by the pressure within. In either case, more room is
wanted, and forcibly taken, by the forces which pack tluid
water into solid ice crystals at 32°.
When ice formed in glass moulds is closely examined, it
i.s found to contain air, curiously packed in hollow chambers.
Their shapes are seen through glass and ice, and they
Itear reference to the centre and the circumference of tlie
vessel which contains the system.
In a spherical glass bottle air-chambers in ice radiate from
a common centre ; the thickest end is inwards, the outer end
tapers oft' to a point, and the inner end Ijends upwards. The}-
arc like shoals of silver tadpoles retreating from the cold.
In ice formed on the flat sides of a glass tank or a tin
mouhl, air-chambers have the same general form, and jioint
their heads away from the outer surface, where ice-crystals
first began to form. At the corners they point down or up.
On the top they point downwards.
So water particles nttract each other and repel air. The
solid packs into an angular form, and the gas is scpieczed out
into curved shapes, whicli are dislortcd spheres, for i'ree
I ml lilies are spherical.
FItOST-MAKKS—AVE.VTIIEI:TX( I. 133
111 pond-ice, or sca-iee, or ice on a puddle, tliese air-
chambers are nearly vertical ; they radiate from the earth's
centre. They are made by gases driven inwards by crystalliz-
ation, driven down by cold ; strnggling upwards because they
are lighter than ice, and resisting pressure because the
freezing point of air is not the same as the freezing point of
water. The "specific lieat" of air radiates outwards from
every bubble, and resists compression.
In every solid crust of ice there are weak points, where
chamliers open a way inwards towards the water, which is
shut up and squeezed by the crust, and tends to escape.
Where a hole has been bored through ice, water rises; and
when the ice is horizontal and the frost hard, a solid mound
forms on the top of the ice-plain.
Beneath tlie mound is a conical liollow, in whicli water
and air gather ; and as freezing and squeezing go on, the
mended hole is apt to burst, as the weakest point in the ice-
crust.
^VU these changes of form result from the well-kn<nvn
fact, that solid water is bigger and lighter than fluid water,
and in this it re.semliles other materials. Iron swells as it
cools in the mould ; cools first outside, and squeezes imprisoned
gases into moulds, which resemble air-chami )ers in ice.
A pound of water still weighs a pound when frozen. Apound of melted iron is no heavier when it has crystallized
and taken the form of a moidd ; Ijut lioth take more room in
packing. As grains of solid lead take more room than tliey
do when melted ; as an ounce of lead filings cannot be packed
cold into a bullet-moidd which casts an ounce ball ; so, per-
haps, crystallization is the arrangement of invisible solid
particles. But in any case it is an active mechanical force,
which does geological work.
l;U DENUDATION.
It crumhk'S earth. Ice which forms in a damp oTa\'cl
walk rises up, and lifts stones. In dragging particles into
their place the packing force squeezes the ice-wedge under
the gravel, and the ground is " hhiwn up hy the frost." Small
stones are found perched upon crystal pillars of various forms.
In clay, cold first turns a clod to stone veined with
crystal ; and then heat cruml)les it to powder, when it melts
the ice.
When ice has formed on fine sand or clay, the surface
retains casts of the ice-crystals, and these may be copied liy
sprinkling dry plaster of Paris into the water, wdien part of
the solid has thawed. It is a case of " pseudo-morphism."
In crystallizing, water drags other substances into forms
which do not lielong to them ; and this is true of other crystals.
The force is one which w^orks two ways. It drags in matter
to Iniild a shape ; and as the shape grows it thrusts extrane-
ous matter away. So crystallization attracts and repels.
On a larger scale this force moves and splits stones and
rocks, and so this crystal tool works denudation.
In Scotland the silence of a still frosty night is sometimes
broken by loud sharp reports, followed hj the hoarse rnml)le
of stones falling from mountain peaks. The fresh tool-mark
of the ice-wedge, and tlic fallen cliijis, are found on many a
steep hill-side and rocky ghui, when aiitimni lirings Southerns
to their shooting quarters. Melted ice then trickles slowly
down as a brigiit varnish of water on the broken stone.
Eain-water sinks into every open chink ; and when it
l'r(!ezes, the crystal wedge shoves great rocks from their base.
The tool-mark is angular ; a fracture, whose shape depends
on tlie natiu'c of tlie vock which is broken. The finished
work is to be seen in high mountains, whose tops are riven
peaks, and whose sides lie shivered where they fell.
FROST-MAKKS—WKATHEIilXC. 135
On the shouldev of Ilecla arc lunnevous l)locks of porous
stone which split easily along planes of bedding or cleavage;
and they show this acticjn of frost. Amongst the loose black
volcanic dust which seems to form great part of the hill, these
blocks show light on a dark ground, and are conspicuous.
Some are entire, and have rounded outlines ; others are split
up into tliin flags. These often retain their relative positions,
but they have been moved away from each other, and they
stand up in the dust like a pile of slates set on edge. It
would he as easy to replace them, as it would be to recon-
struct a block of slate, newly split by a slater at Baillechaolais
With a knowledge of the ways of English ice, it is easy
to understand that water, after soaking into the joints, split
the stone when the sharp frost of this lofty region in a liigh
latitude drove the ice-wedge liome. The next thaw wet the
dust, and the next frost turned it to an expanding stone, and
forced the slates apart. The next dry wind lilew volcanic
dust into the openings, and the next shower of snow covered
it with a layer of water dust, ready to be melted and frozen.
And so heat and cold have split and sorted enough of slal:)s to
roof a hill-side in Iceland.
It would be easy to name a dozen hills in Scotland where
slaty rocks have been split and sorted after the same fashion.
The names of the hills often describe them, as " Gray flags,"'
"Speckled slabs ;" and they are truly described, for the names
were given by men who lived on the hills, and knew the stones.
136 FllOST-MARKS.
These arc frost-marks. Tlic ice-wedge cliisels out cliffs and
rugged peaks ; it makes clear sections and sharp angTdar frac-
tures ; the touch could never be confoimded with the smooth
groove dug out by a river, or by any other grinding engine.
Amongst peaks which are conspicuous examples of this
kind of denudation, the following may be named :—The
Aiguilles about Mont Blanc, which are so steej) as to be free
from snow and tourists m all weathers ; the Schreckhorn and
Finsteraarhom in the Alps ; a few of the highest Scandi-
navian mountains ; Sneehoettan ; the mountains called Ska-
gastol Tinderne, which stand up like pyramids and jagged
points from 8000 to 9000 feet above the sea, and far above the
fjeld ; a few of the highest mountains in Swedish Lapland,
which contrast with plateaus and lower hills about them ; a
few of the highest hills in Scotland, especially the Cobbler
(Leinn Copach) in Argyleshirc, and hills in Wester Iioss ; in
Skye, Mull, Eum, Arran, and other islands ; nearly all the
high tops which face the Atlantic, on the Norwegian coast,
north of Bergen, but only the liigh tops ; nearly all the high
islands which protect the Norwegian coast, and make the
passage to Hammerfest a pleasant sail in a landlocked sea.
the Lofodens have been likened to shark's teeth, saws, and
other spiked instruments. A few solitary peaks in Iceland
rise through swelling mounds of snow, but peaks are rare in
Iceland. The woodcut will best explain what is meant by
weathered peaks.
It is copied irom a sketch made in June 1852 from t\w.
deck of a N(jrwegian steamer at Svolva:>r in the Lofodens.
The phice is a station for catching and curing cod. The split
bodies of the slain are dried upon low ice-ground rocks, and
hang in festoons and fringes from sticks. Those which are
dried on the rock are "clipfisk," the others "stockfisk." ]n
WKATIIKlilNG 137
the foregroimd a native is represented moving about on water-
skates (vand skidor). The peaks and the low rocks contrast
here, as elsewhere on the Norwegian coast ; their forms are
characteristic of quaiTying and polishing ; of glacial denuda-
tion and weathering*
* In this and in following cuts an attempt is made to explain by marginal
notes the meaning of s}Tubols used in the text to express certain rock-forms.
A river delta A, Y's. 'i"cl forks V) •'^I'e familiar expressions; A is hut another
spnbol of a natural form which is characteristic of weathering.
The angle A which the sides of various high peaks make with the horizon
is easily measured on photographs. The following are a few examples :
—
Aiguille du Dru, G9° ; Le Geant, taken from Montanvert, 69° ; Le Mont
Cervin, 64° ; terminal moraine, 32'; dry snow-heaps, about 32' ; Mont Blanc
snow-dome side, 37°.
Fig. 30. Svolv.ek. June 11, 18.52
CHATTEE XTI.
DENUDATION 4—FROST-MARKS 2—LAND-ICE, ALPS.
When river-marks and woatlicr-marks have been li^arnod, it
plainly appears that many roek-oroovcs hollowed ont of tlic
earth's solid crust were neither hollowed by streams like thos(>
which now flow in them nor quarried with ice-wedges.
The rivers at Galway, Inver, Belfast, Ballyshannon,
and Deny, in Ireland ; the Araidh at Inveraray, the Clyde
and Forth, the Tyne and Tay, the Awe and Spey, the Ness
and Lochy, the Conon and Carron, the Shin and Laxford,
and many others, in Scotland, Wales, and England, have only
sawn small ruts in large rock-grooves, which hold rivers and
sea-lochs into which they flow. Elvers did not scoop out the
valley of the Gotha ; the Wenern and Wettern lakes in
Sweden ; Gulbrandsdal, Sffitarsdal, the Hardanger and Sogne
Fjords, Eomsdal, and similar deep trenches cut through rocks
in Southern Norway. A stream flows from Skagastol's ]X'aks,
but the hollow in which it flows is not a river-mark.
Contrast the shape of the peaks in the woodcut witli the
rounded form of the hollow which makes the middle distance,
and with the trench dug by the Euikanfoss (Fig. 21, p. 98).
These forms are tool-marks of weathering, rivers, and ice.
Below these riven peaks, whicli are from 8000 to 9000
feet al)ove the sea-level, are tiny snow-wreaths. In the glen
are old ice-marks. The form of the glen and the ice-marks
are repeated down to the head of the Sogne Fjord ; they may
T,AN1)-ICK, ALP: 1.3!
1)0 followed for a luindrcd miles, past Bergen, over the islands,
and out to sea ; and in some of the feeders of these great sea-
lochs large glaciers still survive.
Further north, the Alten, Tana, Tornea, Umea, and other
rivers of northern Scandinavia, are sawing rock, but they did
not hollow out the big rock-grooves in which they flow.
Glens and hills are rounded and ice-ground, and only the
highest peaks and sea-cliffs are weathered.
Land-ic
arks L V U Y
_^ . Glen apparently -worn by a gla
mark ,—^. " Mammitlated" rocks in the glen,
t by the/all and stream at the bottom ofthe ice-ground glen
Fig. 31. Skaoastol Tinderne. Sept. 1, IBS';
The Laxa did not make Laxdal and BreidfjorS Ijy wearing
the ig-neous rocks of Iceland, but they are worn. If river-marks
are plain in all these glens, other older marks are fresh on
the worn stone surface. They are marks of land and sea ice.
The tool-marks of rivers and weather cover a small space.
140 DENUDATION
—
V\U >ST-MA1;KS.
All over the nortli, at least as fav soiitli as tlie Ilinialayas;
on hill-tops, and on cols 9000 feet al)o\e the present st-a-level
;
in glens, and even under water as far down as rocks can he
seen or felt, marks remain which are ice-marks. Weather and
water are but wearing out these older tool-marks.
One who looks at these for the first time, who sees knobs
of gray stone peering through vegetation ; washed by streams,
or sea waves ; laid bare in a drain, or under turf ; or near a
large town, is apt to attribute tlie marks to any cause but
the right one. The scratcli was made Ijy a wlieel, or a plough,
or a hobnailed shoe, or a stone moved l)y a flood, or a flood
moving over a stone. It is the mark of a landslip, or the
rock was so created. But one who has seen ice at work
cannot mistake the touch of this graving-tool. Still the great
majority of Englishmen do not yet understand what a glacier
is like, or what ice can do ; and many professed geologists
will not believe in the plainest old ice-marks.
The rocks are shaped like a broken stone wliich lias
been rubljcd with sand and a soft pad. Angles are groiuid,
fractured surfaces are smoothed but not wholly obliterated,
and sand-marks show the direction in which tlie grinding
pad was moved l)y the force used to move it. The stone is
roughly jiolished ; so is most part of the northern hemi-
sphere in high latitudes.
In order to learn the meaning of a rock inscription, the
character must be learned. In order to understand the
marks of a graving-engine, the engine must, if jiossible, be
seen to work ; so the first step to the comprehension of ice-
marks onght to be the first of a journey to visit some place
where the hard ice-edge of the atmospheric denuding engine
touches stone ; as it does in the Alps.
The following is a greenhorn's account of his first intro-
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 141
diictioii to iiiouiitaiii ice, some twenty years ago, when green-
horns and phiL_isophers knew less about glacial action. As
one who reuieniLers learning to read can best describe how
he learned his alphabet, a few extracts from old journals
may yet be of interest. The writer of the journal was on
liis way nortliwards and upwards from warm regions to cold,
liavmg travelled from Cape Matapan, Sparta, and Patras, to
Trieste and Venice, and thence across the plain to the Lago
di Garda. He was bound for the top of the Stelvio, and the
head of the lake of Como, and he wrote :
—
" August 19^^, 1841.—Wliat a difterence there is between
travelling amongst romantic mountains and plodding over a
plain ; the very rivers in one case seem to grow dull and lazy;
in the other they leap and bound from rock to rock, as if they
too enjoyed the forests and mountains which they adorn.
" The fresh morning air seemed to send health and vigour
through every vein. I felt as if I could catch a chamois. . .
" At Mareme halted and took a cast in the river. It was
a thick glacier stream, brawling amongst the stones ivhich it
had carried there in icinter, and I got nothing for my pauis but
a deal of admiration from all the idle vagabonds in the town.
" One fellow who spoke Italian advised me to put some
lead on my line as the river was rapid. I am not a bait-
fisher. . . .
" The ascent is not steep but continuous. The Adige, now
a roaring torrent, rushed down by the side of the road, and
the mountains began to be tipped with snow. The grapes too
began to be less and less ripe, and about Latsch the hay-
harvest was only now going on.
" It is curious thus to follow the harv^ est. At Athens,
nearly four months ago, in the end of April, they were cutting
the barley ; at Tola and about Trieste, they were doing the
1 42 DENUDATION—FH( )ST-MAKKS.
same ; at Lail)ae'li and Idria tliey wt'iv making liay ; and here
they are at it again, while the crops are nearly all green.
" At Latsch I saw a glacier tor the first time in my lite.
Were it not for a kind of clondlike a])pearance about it from its
transparency, T should have taken it for a lai'ge snow-wreath.
" Farther u]) larger ones came in sight, and tlie mountains,
clotlied with pines to the very rocks, are much wilder ; but
still I was disappointed. The mountains to thi^ left were
grand ; l)ut they were Aljts, and they ought to \m\v l»een
grandc)'.
" Near Prad, wliieli lies in the entrance of a valley which
branches off from the Adige, the snow-covered peaks of the
Stelvio came in sight. It was getting dark, and it was no
easy matter to distinguish them from the background of
clouds.
"'Friday, August 20th.—The road lay by tlie side of a
roaring burn, and was a continued ascent, l)ut still gradual.
" After about an hour we came in sight of the snowy
peaks of the Stelvio, and mounting a hill a little further on,
the first glacier burst upon our sight.
"One could hardly fancy the impossibility of walking
upon it ;* indeed, even with the spy-glass, tlie cracks and
clefts seemed insigniticant ; lait at last, 1)y conijiariug one of
the smallest rifts with a lir-tree wlutdi grew near it, 1 con-
trived to accustom my mind to tlie vastness of the surround-
ing scenery. The road leaves the l»anks of the river, and
winds in zigzags up the face of tlie hill. 1 took the short cut
several times, and was rewarded for my pains liy nunibevs of
Al])ine strawberries and rasjiberries, wliit-h grew at the foot
ol' the ])iiies. lucry turn of the road now brought some new
peak into view, and glaciers, seen nearer, beg;in lo disclose the
^ Miirli insi.stea uiKiii l.y a .•auti.m.s roii,|,aiii.Mi.
T.ANIt-ICE, ALPS. 143
vuugediiess of tlieir surfaces ; but still what 1 saw aud what
I had read seemed quite irreconcilable.
"At last, just below the Boscho, the road passed close to
the bottom of the Matatsch ; and leaving my com])anion to read
Paul and Virginia in the carriage, I scrambled down the bank,
and across the river, fully intending to ascend the glacier for
some distance. What was my surprise to find that which 1
tf)ok for a coating of snow to be nothing l)ut tlie rough
surface of Wue hard ice !
"Without a hatchet, I could as easily have ascended the
sky as the glacier. 1 poked my stick into the holes, looked
wistfully at the steep smooth surface of the sloping wall of
ice, scrambled up some debris hrought down by the glacier-
stream, and slid down again, carrying a small avalanche with
me ; and then, as I could not get up, 1 just went back again.
" I was only gone fifteen minutes, so near is this glacii-r to
the road. In former years, I believe, it came a good deal
lower down ; liut now it is retiring again to its old linnt.*
" At Boscho we ate bread and cheese, and proceeded.
" The villanous mists had come down on the top of the
Ortles Spitz, and we could not see the whole at once, but what
we did see was grand. Such wild pathless crags and enor-
mous glaciers 1 had no previous idea of.
" By the way, I never saw a description of a glacier that
conveyed the smallest idea of its general appearance. I had
a confused notion that it was a mass of ice broken into the
most fantastic forms, but that this mass should fill up a valley
* The Led from wliirli tliLs glacier has retired is a mass of tlay and angu-
lar blocks of stoue, beaten aud pressed down flat in the centre, but surrounded
by a boundary ridge. It looks as if the ice had been thrust forward, and had
tiien melted away, leaving the (lay wliich the ice contains, as a liare red
liidldw amongst trees and grass.
144 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
I had no idea. I rather tlioiiii,lit it covered the tops of iiioiin-
tams. Now the Manatscli Spitz was in the midst of ice, and
tai)ers up to the clouds, as black as nature made it.
" The road from Boscho to the top of the pass is a mar-
vellous piece of engineering. It is carried up an almost per-
pendicular ascent, so gradually, that a carriage might gallop
up the whole way. It is also protected in the middle by
strong galleries of wood placed at the same angle as the hill-
side, so that any substance falling down is shot past, and
the traveller mounts safely under cover. The extreme
height is 9272 feet, being 800 higher than the perpetual
snow-line, according to Murray.*
" At Santa Maria, a short way down, we halted and dined,
and I determined to stop all night, and try for a chamois in
the morning. . . .
" This is my first day really in the Alps, and the Stelvio and
the Ortles Spitz are no mean specimens. If I was disappointed
yesterday, I was delighted to-day ; and I feel 's mountain
mania gradually coming on. . . .
" This house is new and consequently somewhat damp ; it is
but little below the top of the pass, and there is the higliest
pcirmanent human habitation in Europe. Except th(^ work-
men at the house above, 1 shall probably sleep as high this
night as any one in Europe. What a place it must l)e in
winter ! Patches of snow even now surround it, and the
stunted grass has that yellow-green colour, which it always
wears when newly freed from snow in spring. I am far above
fir trees ; and in fact a more desolate misty abode I cannot
imagine.
" The inhabitants, like all tlie Tyrolese whom 1 have yet
seen, av(^ a rosy-cheeked wliolesome-looking set. Tliere are
"-i;.,rl<s 111 lliis Irvrl, nil (his ro/ , iiiv n.ini(lr,l, un\ sluin. wr;il1uiv,l u^nnU.
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 145
two children running about the liouse, perfect pictures of
health ; one, an urchin of fifteen months (so says his mother),
speaks German and Italian.
" My chasseur made his appearance ahout seven, in his
working dress. He is a handsome little active fellow of nine-
teen or twenty, and from the talk I had with him, seems to
prefer the mountains to working on the road. His eye
sparkled as he told me of his success last Sunday, and he
looks like his work. I am to start at four, weather per-
mitting. It is now raining like Old Scratch, and as thick as
porridge.
" Saturday, August 1\st.—Eose in the dark, breakfasted,
and off by four.
" At this early hour, the moimtain mists had not risen, and
the peaks, showing against the clear cold sky, seemed almost
close at hand. About a mile down my guide left me, to go in
search of his rifle, and I mounted the hill to the right as far
as a peak of rock, which we appointed as a rendezvous.
Here I sat down, and swept the surromiding hills with myglass, in search of game, but without success.
" It was veiy enjoyable to sit basking in the rays of the
newly risen sim, and vrntcli the wreaths of mist as they
gradually rose from the valleys, and crept lazily along the
mountain sides, till they finally rested ujJon the snowy to2)s.*
It was very beautiful, but not good for my hunting.
" My guide now made his appearance, blowing like Boreas
with the exertion of running to be in time ; and after stopping
for a moment to examine his rifle, w^e started. The plan of
operations seemed at first to be the same as deer-stalking.
He walked warily along, peeping over the hill shoulders, till
we came to a spot from which he pointed out a green patch
* See above, p. 26—local winds.
L
146 DENUDATKJN—FKOST-MAKKS.
on an opposite scaur, wliere lie and his friend killed two
clianiois last year. There was a wild cliff above, and a
ruckle of loose stones below it, ending in a precipice, which
fell sheer down ahnost to the Adda, the roar of wdiich came
up faintly to our ears from the depths of the valley below.
One of them approached at each side of this slope, and two
out of three chamois fell.
" We examined the wdiole face of the scaur, and, as I
imagined, we had done with it, when to my horror I found
that this ruckle, of loose stones was to be our road. It was
impleasant, but the game was follow my leader, and on we
went. The slope was very great, and at every step a small
avalanche of stones went rattling and bounding down to the
edge of the precipice, wdiere they disappeared. The noise, I
should fancy, was enough to frighten all the chamois in the
Alps ; but my guide knew best. It was about the hardest
work I ever had, and was rough training after a six months'
rest, and a fever ; and worse than all, there were no chamois
to be seen. Tracks there were in plenty, and, at the far end
of the scaur, quite fresh. I firmly believe the beasts had fled
at our noisy approach.
" At last, after the hardest scramble I ever remember to
have had, we got out at the top of a wild crag on a nude-
path leading from some iron-mines to a furnace, and 1
recovered my nearly broken wind. Here we set to rolling
great stones down the hill. It is a favourite pastime of mine;
I got the fancy from a keeper. It was glorious to see these
great lumbering fellows go hurtling down the brae, scatteruig
the little ones before them, and then with one big bound
leap over tlie cliff in a cloud of dust.
" A canny old shepherd sat upon an opposite bank, watch-
ing o\ir proceedings. 1 suppose he thought we were daft."
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 147
And SO the rest of a day's scramble is described.
" It was now well on in tlie day ; I was not fresh, and the
next chance of a chamois was on the other side of a wild
rocky mountain, tliat towered above our heads ; so, putting
our best foot foremost, we legged away down a sheep-path to
a place where our burn joins a larger one, which comes from
the west. Here the fir-trees began, and we walked on amongst
them, till we got opposite to a veiy remarkable cataract. The
situation is beautiful : on all sides rise the wildest of crags,
with lofty pines clothing the steep banks at their feet, and
between these nearer hills one gets a glimpse of the distant
snowy Alps.
" The cataract itself rushes out of a hole high up in the
face of a cliff, and falls at one shoot fifty feet into a dark
and boiling pool. The water for a wonder is as clear as crystal,
and from the little height upon which I stood, I could almost
have coimted the pebbles in the bed of the stream. Westopped for some time, admiring, and feastmg upon wortle-
berries and strawberries ; and then, fearing a shower, set off
again for Bormio.
" The distance is not great, and I walked in to the bath-
house, amidst exclamations of 'Ecco il cacciatore' from all
the idlers at the door. ]\Iy guide, it seems, is a regidar
poacher, who will not pay for a licence to shoot, and walks
the hills in defiance of guardians. As we came down, he
took the lock off his rifle, unscrewed the nipple, and handed
both to me, with his powder-horn. Then with his dismantled
gun he walked past a fierce man in green, whom we met in
the road, looking iimocence personified
" I camiot well accoimt for the fact, that on the gnround on
which I was there was little or no snow. On the opposite
side of the valley there were even glaciers, extending much
1 48 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
lower tlian we were ; and on the north side of the pass, the
suow-liue was thousands of feet lower down. I understand
it not.*
" The baths of Bormio arc medicinal, and rush out of the
rock at the temperature of 93i° R.
" 22d.—Off at seven in a pour of rain. I was lucky in myday yesterday. The road lies by the side of the Adda all the
way, and as we descended it was like coming into a new
country.
" From l)are rocks we came to pines, and then to chestnuts,
mulberries, and vineyards, with all varieties of grain that
grow in the different climates through which we passed. In
some places the scenery was beautiful. The rocks, which
towered high above the road, were covered with pines to
the very top, and showed like pictures in a magic lantern
through clouds of mist, which now hid and now revealed their
weather-beaten peaks. The valley lower down is full of
villages, and it was amusing to watch the variety of costumes,
as the peasant lads and lasses passed on their way to churches
perched high on hills amongst the wood. Asthma cannot
\)Q. a common ailment.
" At Tirano we dined, and I sallied forth to look at the
people wlio were coming out of church. Every tliird woman
had a goitre ; some were enormous. The men were not so
bad, or their collars hid them ; but lots of men were deformed
by these hideous swellings. Is it caused by air or water ?
The circidation here seems pretty free, and the water is the
same whicli passes Bormio;yet there was not one goitre
above for ten here.
* The reason is plain : the sun shines most on the southern slope, and
snow lasts longest near large snow-heaps.
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 149
" From Tiraiio t(j Sondrio tlie descent is gradual, Ijetween
hills clotlied to the top with forests of chestnut, and at the
foot with trellissed vineyards ; and through the side valleys we
could now and then catch sight of snow-peaks, half hidden by
inists, and contrasting with the rich greens below.
" Sondrio is surrounded by vineyards and gardens, and
stands at the junction of the Malana and Adda, and goitres
abound.
" Monday, '2Scl.—Still following the Adda most of the day.
The valley is now much wider, and marshy in places from the
smaller slope. The effects are evident in the sallow faces and
stunted forms of the people. At Morbegno in particular, mycompanion was very eloquent ; and, in truth, he had numerous
varieties of deformity to lecture ux^on. Of dwarfs there was
no lack ; crooked eyes, goitres, and crooked legs, were fearfully
abundant ; and the name comes from morho, disease.
"Oirr night's resting-place was Colico, a neat little port
on the banks of the beautiful lake of Como.
" The water looked so blue and clear that I could not re-
sist a dip, and accordingly in I went, to the great delight of a
lot of boys and one woman, who with perfect composure took
a position at the foot of a tree, and watched all my proceed-
ings. . . . And so do"^Ti the banks of Como to Milan.
" Wednesday, 2oth.—The road is as flat as a bowling-green,
and the country, like the rest of Lombardy which we have
seen, is a large field of Indian corn, planted with mulberries
and acacias and poplars, from whose branches vines swing in
festoons. Here and there comes a patch of mUlet, oats, and
other grain. It is a contrast to the top of the Stelvio."
The raw hand, unused to ice and its marks, saw and remem-
bers the legible characters which a departed race of giant
glaciers have inscribed upon rocks in eveiy glen in the Alps.
150 J)KNUI)ATION—FRORT-MARKrt.
lie could neither read the inscription nor understand the lan-
guage of ice. But he had begim in a school which has turned
out a class of eminent men, to whom ice-marks are familiar as
letters on a page. Many hooks have heen written about
glaciers ; and many more are coming. The learned dispute
aboTit details ; the unlearned take sides. Bits of rock, wdth
ice-marks upon them, are now stored in nmseums ; shop-
windows are filled with photographs of Alpine scenery ; an
Alpine club has been founded, and it has published books;
but in spite of all these highroads to knowledge, not one man
in ten understands what an ice-mark is, or knows more than
the writer of the journal knew of this subject.
A second lesson was learned from the Grimsel.
Near the top, bare granite rocks support but a scanty
vegetation. The path itself in many places runs over rounded
tables of rock, in which steps are cut for the feet of the mules.
There is no ice in the glen so far down, but these ice-marks
are like those which extend from the Stelvio to Como. The
muddy river which flows at the bottom of the glen has done
little work since the last of the big glaciers struck work and
retired.
" Tuesday, September 14:th, 1841.—Started at a quarter to
six, accompanied by Nauspaumer with a bag of eatables, and
led by a chamois-hunter. We followed the course of the
Aar for about a couple of miles, and then, turning to the left,
scrambled along the face of a moimtain. After some hours of
slipping and stumbling, we found ourselves at the foot of the
Olxiraar glacier, ^\]lere we lialtcd, and loaded our riiles, and
spied tlie country.
"My guide now turned to the riglit, and ascended the
valley, slanting up the mountain, peeping cautiously over
rocks, treading lightly on loose stones, and speaking in whis-
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 151
pers. Cliamois tracks were unnierous, and some quite fresh.
Far off, on tlie other side of the valley, my sharp-eyed guide
had spied a mark in the snow. He said it was the pass
of a chamois, and that we should probably find him higher up.
This work went on for several hours. We had got very higli
up ; the glacier was spread like a model at our feet, and I
was meditating the ascent of a neighbouring peak, when myeye caught something moving below. It was a fine chamois
making his way carefully along the ice ; and in a moment we
were all down flat and mute as flounders. With my glass I
could watch every movement the brute made, and my heart
was in my mouth with keenness. The hunter, with joy
sparkling in his sharp eyes, declared that he was going quite
right, and we had the satisfaction of seeing him stop and feed
at the first rock he came to. Setting ISTauspaiimer to keep
watch, we drank ' Fuil air an sgian,' and started for stalking
in earnest.
" The place which the chamois had chosen for his mid-day
halt was a rock sprinkled with tufts of nice green grass, and
fronted by ice. It was a perfect chamois' paradise. Wescrambled across a small broken glacier, which was rather
kittle ; mounted a verv^ steep snow-wi^eath, which would have
stopped me at any other moment ; and when we got fairly
above the rock, we began the old work of peeping and creep-
ing over the stones.
" At last we foimd him ;—he was quietly chewing the cud
on a green bank some hundred and twenty yards below me;
and he was looking out over the glacier as if studying its
nature.
" I thought he was much further off;put up the long
sight ; fired as steadily as I could, and the ball knocked up
the dirt a good foot over him. Up sprang the beast, off went
152 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS.
the second barrel, and away lie scudded like the wind. ]Mus-
tering all the semblance of German at my connnand, I turned
to the hunter and said, ' Schootz nie.'
" There never was such a tailoring shot, and I never was in
such a stew. I walked liack very crestfallen along the sur-
face of the glacier, which is here as firm and safe as a road;
took a shot at a stone at the same distance as the chamois,
and smashed it to bits. Took a header into the ' dead sea,' a
black lake behind the inn, which cooled me effectually ; told
everybody I met what a mess I had made, and got to bed
after twelve hours of hard walking.
" My liimter is a regular artist. He mounted the Jungfrau
the other day with Forbes, and he says that he gave the Pro-
fessor four fair shots at chamois, all of which he missed. The' stag fever' is epidemic here. He stalked like an old sports-
man, and I took a gi'eat liking to him, though his only Hugo
is that horrid German.
" 15th.—Started at 5.30. Porters, blankets, and grub, and
three young fellows who mean to join me, were to follow
later. We took the same path as yesterday till we reached
the Unteraar glacier ; then, instead of turning to the left, we
went straight on \\j) the glen on the ice for four hours. The
first six miles one might easily take for dry ground.
" There is nothing to be seen but one vast plain of loose
stones. Sometimes these rise into ridges, and the biggest are
always uppermost. The last hour was over crisp ice, down
which torrents of clear water brawled in blue channels till
they vanished into some hole or cranny with a roar like
thunder.
" I threw big stones into some of these 'moidins,' and could
hear them rattling from sitle to side to an enormous de])th.
The colour of lliese pits is a l)eautiful deep blue. The water
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 153
which thus nms in clear, conies out milk-white below the
glacier, and it does not clear till it has passed through several
lakes. It is not quite clear even at Eotterdam.
" At last we reached our night's quarters. A Swiss pro-
fessor has been living here for more than a month, and only
went away last week. He has been digging a hole to try the
depth of the ice, and the shelter used by his men is to be our
bedroom.*
" The large Lauteraar and Finsteraarhom glaciers meet
here, and their enormous moraines joined, yet clearly dis-
tinguishable, run together down the Unteraar glacier, and no
doubt these form the plain of stones below. At the very top
of this moraine, on a ridge some forty feet higher than the sur-
face of the glacier elsewhere, stands an enormous block of
granite, from under which the ice has so melted as to leave a
kmd of vault with an ice floor and a gTanite rooft Taking
advantage of this, the Professor and his men have built up a
low wall which keeps out the cold wind in some measure.
We spread out some hay which was left in this den, left our
extra traps, and started for the mountains. We took the right-
hand side of the valley at the foot of the Wetterhorn because,
having a southern exposure, there is less snow. The opposite
bank of the glacier is formed by the cliffs and talus of the
Schreckhorn ; and there was not a bare bit of ground on the
* The party must have been Agassiz, Guyot, Desor, and their visitor
Forbes. The results of their experiments were published. Agassiz, Etudes
sur les Glaciers, with an atlas of excellent drawings, Neuchatel 1840 ; Forbes,
Travels throiujJi the Alps of Savoy, Edinburgh 1843 ; Agassiz, Systeme
Glaciaire, etc., Paris 1847 ; Forbes, Noricay and Us Glaciers Visited in 1851,
Edinburgh 1853.
f This stone was figured by Agassiz, and the glacier carefully mapped,
sounded, and tested in many ways. The stone is slowly floating down on the
ice-river. One very like it is in Connemara ; see below.
154 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
whole of it except where the rocks were too steep for snow to
rest.
" It was the deuce and all scrambling over these rocks.
They wcnv mucli worse than any I have yet been in ; and the
worst of it is that they are not firm. Tliey often break in the
hand, and crush beneath the foot. Old Nauspaumer did not
like it at all. He had my rifle to carry, and was always
craning when we got to a bad place. There were marmots in
plenty, whistling like curlews in all directions, and there
were plenty of tracks of chamois, but we could see none.
" At one place we stopped to rest after crossing a snow-
wreath, and from our peak we were watching an old marmot.
His head and whiskers were peering from mider a stone, and
he seemed to be ruminatmg over his own private affairs, for
he never stirred an inch. We were disturbed by a loud noise,
and turning round I saw two or three great blocks of stone go
rattling and bounding down the identical snow-wreath which
we had just crossed with some difficulty.
" These went to the glacier, and they w^ent like cannon-
baUs.
" The chance of a chamois was now small, so putting up
my rifle, I blazed at a marmot, who was sitting on a stone.
I. missed him, but the noise made the gentleman with the
whiskers poke his head a little further out, and the second
bullet went through his pate. Down he rolled head over
heels on the grass below his door. He may have been about
100 yards off, and straight down. It took us nearly half an
hour to get round to the place. We walked on carelessly
after this, thinking the shot would have scared every-
thing. Tlie hunter was first, and on walking round a point,
he started four cliamois which were feeding. Off they set,
and halted in a cluster on the top of a rock to gaze. I
LAND-IGE, ALPS. 155
rushed back for my rifle, fired both barrels, the guide fired
his, and the chamois galloped over the snow like the wind.
I watched them with the glass for more than two miles, and
nothing seemed to stop them. At last the leader put his nose
down, and pulled up at a suspicious place, then wheeling short
round tliey scampered off in another direction, and soon after
disappeared in a great black shadow. They were 400 yards
off when we fired, so there was no shame in missing them.
"We now got down to the foot of the rocks, and slid
down a snow-wreath, holding back with our poles. It was
like flying. Old Nauspaumer, being exceedingly pleased
with his performance, got quite cocky, and forgot where
he was going. He marched over a place which was evi-
dently unsafe, and I was opening my mouth to warn him
when the snow gave way and down he sank in a crevasse.
Luckily he caught hold of the edge and scrambled out, or his
life and my best rifle would have ended together. The bottom
of the place was far out of sight, and it made one's flesh creep
to look in and think of the fate which the old goose had so
narrowly escaped.
" The surface here is generally firm enough for a coach and
six, but it is desperately hard walking. The upper parts of
these glaciers consist of loose snow ; the sun had melted this
during the day, and now there was a thin crust of ice on the
top, through which we broke at every step, sousing our feet
into a cold bath below. Further down it was all right, and
we stepped out for our stone house, from which came yoddling
and screaming and all sorts of noises.
" My comrades admired the marmot, bewailed the miss
and my wet feet, and we sat down to a supper of cold meat.
It was welcome after twelve hours of hard work. One of the
party is a Eussian and a dandy, another a Dane, and the best
156 DENUDATION—FROST-MAliKS.
of the lot is a little German who speaks Fi'ench. They have
two guides and a porter ; I have a guide and a hunter ; so nine
of us crept under the stone after supper, and lay like herrings
in a ban-el on one hay bed. I soon slept, but about mid-
night I was roused by giggling and German all about me. I
asked my neighbour what it was about, and fomid that the
Euss had suddenly remembered that it was a fete at home,
and he was bewailmg his hard fate. He was contrasting an
ice pillow in Switzerland with the brilliant ball at home.
I laughed and fell asleep again in spite of the cold, which was
intense. The Professor had left a great gap between his wall
and the stone ; there was bare ice within a foot of my nose;
never was a poor gentleman in a worse lodging.
" Thursday, 10th.—Got breakfast over and started at 6,
with a cloudless mornmg and a prospect of line weather. Yes-
terday we followed the Lauteraar nearly to the source. To-
day we took the left branch, walking up the Finsteraarhorn
glacier between the Schreckhorn and Finsteraarhorn. We went
yoddling and shouting to rouse the echoes, and they returned
tlie noise. My little German bedfellow had nearly finished
his travels. I chose a bit of firm ice, and performed Jacky-
tar and the double shuffle to warm my feet. The Prussian
followed suit with a German ' curcuddie,' but his ground was
ill chosen. I pushed him off", or he certainly would have
broken the snow bridge on which he was dancing ; a stick
went through the crust easily, and the depth was fearful.
There is no danger in these covered cracks ; the snow, being
newer than the rest, is whiter and cleaner, and by poking a
stick into it, the strength is easily tested. After a fall of
snow it is dangerous to walk alone, for all is white and even.
" We reached the toj:) of our branch glacier in two hours,
and sat down in the snow to strengthen our nerves with
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 157
sometliing short. Before us was a snow-talus, half snow half
ice, sloping at a steep angle, 32° or more, from the top of the
ridge which joins the Schreckhorn to the Finsteraarhorn. It
might be about 1000 feet higher than the glacier, and wp this
we had to go. The hunter who carried the axe made me a
sign, and walking quietly away, I followed him as far as I
could without help, and then trod in steps which he cut for
me in the hard snow. The rest were tied together, and fol-
lowed like a string of malefactors. Thanks to my himter I
was first up, and drank success to the Schreckhorn and long
life to old Scotland in a cup of kirchenwasser. We were
now very high, the snow on the col was white and unsullied, and
high above us rose the Schreckhorn, as yet imtrodden by man.
Had it not been for heavy clouds which were rising behind
us I should have tried, for it looked easy. The hunter pointed
at the clouds and shook his head ; so I bowed to the manwho had scaled the Jimgfrau, and gave it up. It poured
before night."*
(So here, at a high col (11,000 feet), the rocks are weathered,
not ground ; all the peaks and ridges that we saw were sharp,
angular, jagged, fractured rocks, shivered and split ; and the
loose fallen stones were of the same pattern.)
" Now came the descent on the other side. It was not
nice going, but by following my himter I got down, and the
rest followed us. We scrambled down several broken scaurs,
and halted at the top of a snow-slope. It seemed to slant
down several thousands of feet till it reached the level of the
Grindlewald glacier. I fimked desperately, but there was no-
thing for it but foUow my leader ; so, planting my feet togetlier,
* In 1857 this peak was mounted by Mr. Anderson. The account is very
interesting. In 1852 the Strahlek was crossed by Mr. J. Ball {Peals, Passes,
and Glaciers, 1859). He makes the angle 60°.
158 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
aud holding tlie pole 1jeliiiid, I let myself go and glided doAvn
about 300 yards. Here was a bare rock, so we dng the
points of our sticks into the snow, stopped the coach, and sat
down to watch the others. They looked like pigmies craning
over the edge. First came the German, and reached the first
stone all right ; then came the Dane, who lost his footing,
and performed the rest of the journey on his foundation;
last came the Kuss, who fell flat on his back, and lost his
stick and his hat. He might have lost his life also but for
a lucky stone which brought him up. He was too much
shaken to try again, so two men took him imder the arms
for the rest of the way. The hunter cut snooks, cheered,
made himself into a tripod again, and started. I followed as
best I could, and reached the bottom hot, but charmed with
this new method of travelling. The dandy came in terribly
dilapidated ; his face was pale, his hands skinned in trymg
to hold back, his shirt-bands were torn, the heels of his
Wellingtons had gone to one side, and his knees shook. So
we all sat dowai and ate and drank vigorously."
(Sliding is pleasant, but sometimes it is disastrous. On
the 28th February 1864 a fatal accident happened in the
Vallais.* A party moved a whole snow-slope, which slid
with them, aud two were killed in the avalanche. Myfather, about 1819, slipped at the top of a snow-slope in
Switzerland. He had no stick, Ijut he tried to stop him-
self with the stock of his gun. It broke short off, and the
ramrod went through his thigh. It turned him over, and
he went down head-foremost and senseless. A mass of
snow gathered before him and stopped him at last, above some
ice-crags. If he had gone other ten yards I should never
liave seen the Alps. He was found by his sei'vant and the
* Times, Marcli 17.
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 159
guides, with his hair frozen, and unconscious. They brought
him round with kirchenwasser, and helped him home ; and
months afterwards bits of cloth were taken out of the wound
which the ramrod had made.)
" The view from the top of the pass was magnificent. On
one side were the Eiger, the Jungfrau, the ISIonch, and
other peaks, the highest hi the Oberland ; behind us were
the rinsteraarhorn and the Schreckhorn ; below us lay the
Grindlewald glacier, broken into every possible shape, and
looking like some blue loch ; on the other side was the
sea of ice, up which we had toiled in the morning. From the
sides of the Eiger great avalanches poured. One took ten
minutes in falling. The noise which it made, though many
miles away from us, was like loud continuous thunder, or the
roar of a heavy surf beating on a west-country strand. It
looked like a stream of rolling white dust pouring in cataracts
over the dark rocks, but when we got near the place a cone of
broken ice like a cairn of chalk had covered several acres of
the glacier.
" After our halt we followed the edge of the Grindlewald
glacier, descending rocks, climbing over moraines, and leaping
chasms, till we reached a path which led to the inn. Here it
began to rain, and for the next three hours it poured. Mytown-bred comrades were fairly done. The Euss and the
German each had a guide to support him ; and the Dane,
with the heels of his boots where heels had never been,
limped on alone. We walked into Grindlewald at 4, and
they went to bed and stayed there. After dinner I gave myhunter his dues, and a hearty squeeze of the hand ; and we
parted as brother sportsmen pai-t, when one pays well, and
the other is a willing, active, honest fellow, fond of his work
and easily pleased."
160 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
In these few days a good deal of the ice-workl and its
ways had been seen and learned.
A third lesson was taken at Chamouni, and tliongh that
ground has since become pretty familiar, a first impression of
the Col de Geant may still have some interest, if only for
those who remember with pleasure the pleasant stories of poor
Albert Smith.
" Tiiesday, Scptemher 28th, 1841—Chamouni.—Got under
weigh at 4, with a guide and a chamois-hunter. The first
a tall, strapping, handsome man ; the other "little, but active
and strong as a mule. We walked straight up the steep
hills to the south, and reached the last tree in about two
hours and a half, the time allowed being three and a half.
Here we halted, loaded our rifles, and began stalking. Wewere before the sun, so our chance was good ; but nothing did
we see, but a covey of ptarmigan, which ran about close to our
feet. I would not fire for fear of disturbing the larger game.
" We had now got to the foot of the Aiguille du Midi, and
the impossibility of mounting was evident. Sunday's new-
fallen snow had found no resting-place on the cliffs. The
spot in which we most expected to find chamois was empty,
and without a trace ; so turning towards the Mer do Glace, we
scrambled along at the foot of the aiguilles, crossing several
small glaciers on our way. After a stiff pull amongst loose
stones, we got to the foot of the Aiguille , innnediately
above the Montanvert. Here we fed and began to descend.
It is the worst place I have yet been in. The granite blocks,
amongst which we were obliged to make our way, were enor-
mous, and thrown one on the other in the most fantastic
heaps and pyramids, like a cairn. Now and then we came to
small snow-wreaths, and slid down ; at other places we had to
leap from block to block, or crawl under the big stones. (Tlie
LAXD-ICE, ALP8. HU
rocks at the eud of the Mull of Ceanth-e, close to the sea level,
are disposed like this talus of the High Alps.) I nearly got a
bad hurt at one place. The spike of the alpenstock, now
nearly worn away, failed to act as drag in sliding down a patch
of snoM'. I could not stoj), but came bump against a stone at
the bottom, instead of halting within a foot of it, w4iich is the
right thing to do. There was no harm done. We got safely
to the heap of debris at the bottom, and having marked a
marmot from above, we stationed ourselves to watch for him.
I waited for an hour and a half in vain ; then calling the
himter, we scrambled down a difiicidt ravine, called the Third
Chimney, and foimd ourselves on the moraine. We got to
the Montanvert at about 3.30 ; and, leaving the hunter,
I walked down to Chamouni, firing ball at the little birds
in the forest. Bagged two tomtits, and carried their headless
remains to my quarters, in lieu of the promised chamois.
Going for thirteen hours ; saM' one marmot and some hoof-
tracks."
(This coimtry is a specimen of weathering on the large
scale. The ice-wedge quarries granite from the aiguilles,
and the lilocks form talus-heaps ; but these bear no propor-
tion to the Avork done, for the chips are carried away. They
fall upon a moving base.)
" Wednesday, September 2Wi.— Off at 4, and reached
the Montanvert by sunrise. Took a small boy to carry myrifle, but he was so blown at the half-way fountain that
I gave him a dram and sent him home as unfit for service.
The hunter was up and waiting for me, so after breakfast westarted. There is a path for some distance along the moraine,
and this we followed as far as it went. After this we took to
the ice, and walked along till w^e reached the rocks of Tacul.
The sun did not shine on the place, so we did not pause to
1 G2 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
reconnoitre. Keeping to the ice we turned to the left, and
continued on for about an hour, till we got below some
aiguilles, on the top of which chamois had been seen yester-
day by a party M'ho had gone to the Jardin. Here we lay
down on the stones of the moraine, and took a long survey
with the glasses, but without success. We now turned back,
mounted the Eochers de Tacid at one end, and walked on
towards our night's quarters, looking cautiously over the
ridges as we went.
" I wanted to go to the top, as it was getting late, and I
thought the beasts would have gone up from their feeding-
ground ; but the hunter said we had a long day before us, and
advised the lower beat. As the learner I submitted, but I
Avas right. We had not gone many hundred yards from the
place where we held our council, when my stalker spied a
chamois trotting up hill, and in a few moments four others
followed. They appeared from behind a rock, about two shots
off ; and as they were not much frightened, we lay perfectly
still and watched. They had seen us, for I could hear their
shrill warning whistle ringing sharply amongst the crags,
and echoing from all sides. They were lost, and we were
beat. If we had gone above we might have got a shot ; now
we might as well follow an eagle. After this we trudged on
with a faint hope that there might be more on the ground;
and we found plenty of fresh tracks, but no beasts. We saw
one on the opposite side of the Mer de Glace through our
telescopes ; but he was in a very difficult place, aud it was too
late to follow him.
" As our men had now arrived, and we were close to the
rock where we were to sleep, we came down and helped to
gatlier rhododendrons and juniper for the fire.
" The last place we looked into for chamois was somewhat
LAND-ICE, ALl'S. 163
dangerous. We had to pass below a small glacier, and as
the sun's rays struck powerfully the stones on the surface
were loosened and rolled continually down, the large ones
driving the little ones and threatening destruction to every-
tliing in the way. We scuttled over the rubbish heaps as fast
as we could, and I was not sorry to be out of the run of the
stone avalanches. A rock or a cliff, so as it be sound, is to
be passed by the help of a steady head and eye ; but a
falling stone stops to ask no questions, and woe lietide the
man whom it hits on its way down hill."
(Thia was the second halt of a quarried stone. Dropped
from a peak, it became part of a talus-heap resting on ice,
and this heap by stretching became a lateral moraine as the
glacier moved. Dropped from the end of the small glacier,
the stone became part of a terminal moraine ; and in this
case it was also part of a talus-heap which formed part of
the lateral moraine of a larger glacier. We w'ere in a fork of
the Mer de Glace, and two lateral moraines met at the junc-
tion and floated off side by side in the middle, till they fell
at last into the valley of Chamouni, and formed part of the
terminal moraine of the INIer de Glace there. The terminal
moraine is the delta of the ice-river ; the medial moraine is
like a float of logs in the Ehine, or the float above mentioned,
p. 123. Good Swiss photographs now abomid.)
" My guides had brought lots of blankets, provisions, and
wine ; so, after supping, we all lay down with our feet to the
blaze, and I for one was soimd asleep before my head had
been many minutes on its stone pillow.
" Thursday, SOth.—Awakened by the chasseur, who wanted
my shoes to put in spikes. Seeing that the moon was just
setting, and that there would be no daylight for a couple of
hours, I poked my feet into a bag, wTapped my capote closer
1G4 IiF,\n»ATli)X—FHOST-MAKKS.
about iiR', and slept. I was roustt'd out agaiu at aliout 4.3(>,
and fiudiug there was uo help for it, 1 unrolled jiiyseli' and
gave a shake by way of AN-asliing. We ate a crust of lu-ead
and started just as the first gray dawu was beginuiug to
appear. The boy who brought the Ijlankets made up the
fire and sat down to watch our progress ; and we were a queer
lot to look at certainly.
" We soon reached the broken ice, and began to scramble
in earnest. It was difficult enough, but by dint of nails, and
an occasional step cut with the axe, we got on swimmingly
nearly to tlie top. But here came a stopper.
" The ice of all these glaciers seems to advance continually
towards the valleys. When, therefore, this enormous mass,
perhaps two hundred feet thick or more, comes to a precipice
in its bed, it first cracks from side to side, and then falls over,
breaking into cliffs and chasms, and forming the most fantastic
towers and pinnacles. The motion is of course imperceptible
to the eye, but its effects are manifest in weekly changes and
hourly falls of enormous blocks of ice at the lower part of
the ice-slide. Where fragments are small it is possible,
though difficult, to walk, but at the top, where the masses
liave not yet passed over the edge of the rock, the whole
glacier is sometimes split from one side to the otlier, making
a wall of hard blue ice sixty or seventy feet high. This is a
wall to be climbed by those who are below, a su.nk fence to
l)e got over by those who are above ; such a ditch and wall
were now before us, and how to pass them was the puzzle.
We clambered up one heap—a bit of a fallen wall—and could
see that if this danger was passed our future progress was
easy. So we fell to hunting for a passage. The giiides
dispersed, and appeared every now and then perched on the
top of some ice-crag and peering over into the cracks, but for
LAND-ICE, ALPS. lOo
a long liuiL' all was in vain. The men got keen, and spoke
patois ; and one sentence, which meant ' No passage this
way,' became familiar by repetition. We all began to think
that we must return, for the sun was up and the danger of
ice-falls thereby greatly increased. At last one cheery shout
proclaimed a find, and we all gathered round the man to liold
our council A great block of ice had fallen out of the clifi'
under which we stood, and it nuide a bridge over the chasm
below. By passing over tliis it seemed that we might climb
the breach and gain the upper le\el. ^^^' leaped down to the
bridge, crossed it one by one, and 1muled ourselves up the
slope on the other side by sticking our hands into every cliink.
Several chasms were now passed, and we were up, threading
our way amongst the torn ice, which splits before it breaks
and falls. Most of these cracks are too wide to leap ; we
had to wind about, sometimes on a strip n<:)t a foot broad,
sometimes leaping the narrowest ditches. At last we got to a
moulin—a hole into which a stream of running water fell
—
and here we halted for breakfast. It had taken us three
hours to reach this place, and the distance could not be much
more tlian an English mile, for we heard the boy at the Tacul
shout when we got to the top of the last cliff'."
(The general slope of this ice-slide is about the same as
the slope of the water-slide at Trollhattan, p. 103. If the
rock beneatli the ice were laid bare it would probably resemble
the rocks m the middle distance of Fig. 23, p. 100, for similar
ice-ground slopes abound elsewhere. The lava at Thingvalla,
in Iceland, near the edge of the big rift, has split into forms
which closely resemble ice-crevasses.)
" Breakfast over we went on. As a lot of new suom
had fallen, the first precaution was to rope the party.
The leader was about three vards from the rest, and went
166 DENUDATION—FKUST-MARKi^.
cautiously, poking his stick into every suspicious place, and
tucking it under his arm when he ventured to cross an un-
certain bridge. We followed, holding back with sticks pointed
in front of us when the leader seemed in danger of popping
into a hole. This was no unnecessary caution, for though I
was in the middle I slipped in to the thigh more than once,
and my comrades were not more fortunate. At noon we
got to the top, and fairly cut the giant's throat. At this
place, which is nothing but a bare rock peering through
the snow, Saussure lived for eighteen days and nights,
making experiments. His followers had gathered a goodly
heap of rock-crystal, and had left about a waggon-load on
the site of their tent, but all the best had been carried off,
so I left the pile. All below us was calm, for light clouds of
gray mist crept slowly along the mountain sides, or hung be-
calmed in some deep glen ; but above us, on the shoulder of
Mont Blanc, the "tourments" kept whisking dry snow up into
the air like clouds of smoke or spmdrift. Suddenly one of
these blasts paid us a passing visit, and nearly swept us from
our perch. The squall half blinded us with snow, and seizing
my poor green veil, carried it away up the hills and out oi"
sight in a moment." (Here were local winds, the offspring of
a hot sun, a snow-clad mountain tract, bare black heated
aiguilles, and liot plains and glens.)
" The view was splendid. Below us waved a sea of moun-
tains reaching to the horizon and capped with snow ; to our
left was the giant's peak, and past one shoulder peeped Monte
llosa, a great mass of glittering snow, dwarfed by the distance
to a model toy. To tlie right was Mont Blanc, clear to the
highest peak ; and at our feet lay tlie town and baths of Cor-
mayeur, and Itiily. We tinisht'd our wine, stowed the bottles
amongst the dllicr cj'ystal, and scramltlcd on. It was rathci'
LAND-IGE, ALPS. 1G7
ticklish work, but not so bad as the glacier. We had to make
our way on the very edge of a ridge of stone, from both sides
of which deep snow-drifts slanted down to glaciers. In some
places the new-fallen snow was so deep as to cover all diffi-
culties, and feet slipped between large loose stones, to the
great detriment of sliins and ankles. I wanted to slide, hav-
ing learned the art ; but the guides would not hear of such a
thing. Slowly and surely we scrambled down to smoother
ground, and the first turf on the southern slope. Took a shot
at a chamois galloping at a distance of nearly a quarter of a
mile, in hopes that he might be frightened into breaking his
neck, but he only ran the faster. ' If I had a pair of legs like
him,' said the guide, ' I would go faster than I do.' AVe got
to Cormayeur at 5."
(The top of this col amongst the glaciers of Mont Blanc
is not ice-ground. It is not a firm, solid, smooth, rounded
rock, like rocks which are under the glaciers, near the glaciers,
far below the lowest of modern Alpme glaciers, and in all
glens where land-ice has been. The ridge-stone is riven by
ice-wedges ; the snowshed is either a weathered peak, on
which snow-flakes fall lightly, or a ridge of peaks like the
teeth of a saw. FaUen snow may press heavily on such a
place, but there is no ice-slide to grind and polish.
Blocks are quarried, they are angular, and they pack them-
selves mto the shape which fallen rubbish assumes—a cairn.
A heap leans against the cliff from which it fell, and rests
there, for the only wearing agents are rain-drops and snow-
flakes, water-rills, ice-wedges, and the winds ; the snow which
falls on the knife-edge slides off and becomes a snow-slope
above a "ruckle o' stanes." But if the snow-heap is large
enough to crush its base it becomes a mechanical force to
move the cairn, and it moves under the snow ; over the rock.)
168 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
These are some of the steps on this ladder to k^arning;
in this storehoiise of facts ; this workshop of frost.
In pursuit of chamois and trout, the scholar had seen the
highest cliffs crumbling and falling away to leave peaks. He
had seen angular stones falling, rolling, wearing their angles
off; to make sand;
gathering in heaps, and resting upon
narrow shelves. He had seen the base of talus-heaps of
stones and snow, coincident with the edge of a step, or resting
on the bottom of a valley. He had seen valleys filled with
moving ice, upon which talus-heaps became moraines. He
had followed ice rivers up from delta to watershed, and down
from snowshed to terminal moraine. He had unconsciously
followed the track of old glaciers from the Stelvio to Milan,
and from the Col de Geant to Turin.
The first glacier was silent and still : it was slowly
melting. So, for the new liand, it was a torrent which
brought down the rubbish, and a muddy river which had
rolled down the boulders, amongst which trout would not rise.
Even philosophers had not then found out Swiss moraines in
the plains of Lombardy and Germany.
The scholar was "green." In 1864 work obviously done
by ice has been attributed to rivers by men who rank as
geologists ; and those who point out ice-marks, Avhich they
have learned to understand, are sometimes called " ice-mad,"
by men who have only seen pond-ice. The rounded surfaces
which are conspicious in all southern Alpine glens, and
grooves which are cut sharp and clear on the shores of every
Scotch sea-loch, convey no meaning till a glacier has been seen
to move, or till the lesson of land-ice has been learned on trust.
Whoever has ground a stone knows how he made marks
upon it, and can recognise like marks. When he has seen
\\ atei' turned into an engine which crushes stones to powder,
LAND-ICE, ALPS. 169
aud " griuds momitains like mole-hiOs," he kiioMS the touch
of the solid edge of the revolving tool which works geological
deuudation with land-ice.
The chief things wanted are time, opportunity, and travel.
Glaciers are not within every-day experience at home in
England, but they are in the Alps.*
* A paper by Professor Ramsay, separately printed in 1862, and first pulj-
lislied in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, August 1862, gives
a map which embodies the result of much modern study of old ice-marks.
On this it is shown that chips hewn from the Alps are spread far and wide,
beyond the Rhine in one direction, and far down into Lombardy on the other.
They have been can'ied from Mont Blanc and his neighbours, over the Lake
of Geneva, on to the top of the Jura Mountains, and the prevailing explana-
tion is that these stones were carried by land-ice.
In Lyell's Antiquity of Man, 18(53, this subject is fully treated. At page
089 of Jukes' Manual of Geology, 1862, the transport of the Jura blocks is
attributed to icebergs floating in a sea which washed the base of the Alps.
Many older geological works treat this ice question. All who have studied it
agree that glaciers were much larger since glens assumed their present general
form in the Alps.
#F^#\''fT"%
KiG. 32. An Ice-Slide.
mi a pen and ink ctihinpr niadf snnn after crnssing the Col fie Geant, September an. 1S41.
CHAPTEli XIII.
DENUDATION 5—FEOST-JIAKKS 3—LAND-IGE 2
—
SYMBOLS AND MODELS.
The lesson learned from the Alps was that a glacier is ice
moving from a watershed downwards towards the sea, at
various rates, according to slope, pressure, and temperature.
A rain-drop is the seed from which a river grows, a cloud
is the pod from which it is shed. A drop which falls verti-
cally on a horizontal plane radiates (Fig. 21, p. 96) ; and streams
part from the highest stone on a weathered peak. A snow-
llake is the seed from which a glacier grows, and it falls
from the same branch as the drop.- When a white downy-
snow-flake comes whirling through stiU air, and settles upon
a cold flat stone, it rests there imbroken. Those which fol-
low take the same course tiU they are stopped, and they cover
the base with a conical heap at last. Familiar letters have
been used to express river-marks. Ice engTaves the water-
alphabet in larger letters on the same ground.
Let the dot • stand for a drop ; I for its downward course;
X for its horizontal course, when it falls on a flat stone; L
for the notch dug in a hill-side by the first leap down hill;
•.;; for the next splash ; L for the next fall, upon the next
base O. Then V will stand for the section of a valley dug
by the river in a hill, or for the plan of river forks; U for a
steep-sided drain ; Y lor a vaUey with a trench dug at the
bottom, or the plan of a fork ; L gives the next downward
step which water cuts in sh»pes on its way to the plain •
LAND-ICE—SYMBOLS. 1 7
1
CO ^ " mean plan and section of a river and its bed
(see page 114) ; A •'—^ plan and section of the delta ; ___ ,
means the water-liuCj and a full stop for the travels of a
drop, driven down by weight from a cloud to the sea. That
is the water alphabet of the symbols used above, which are
intended to express natural forms by forms familiar as ABC.
Weight.
IFluiil }iarticle.s.
L
o"lvuyL CO ^^ A ^N— .
In like manner let a star -.;; stand for a snow-flake; I for
its course ; A for a mountain peak; O for its base ; then the
symbol A may be used to express a conical or pyramidal
mountain whose form results from -weathering and falling.
Then ^ (not L) is the shape which results from wearing by
snow-faUs. Avalanches do not dig straight down. They do
not undermine as a waterfall does. They slide, and make
rounded slopes -n^ , not steps L. Where they fall they rest,
and form a talus-heap, whose angle with the horizon is about
32°. (See pp. 137, 169.)
The glacier flows from the base, and slides doAvn the
slope ; it wears a wide bed >. , or a wdde drain U, it joins
other glaciers like a river V Y. Like a river it winds CO,
and has a delta A. Eocks over which it moves are rounded
hills or groves ^v or ^>-^. If it gets to the sea the snow-
flake '-:- becomes part of an iceberg, and the debris is a
moraine of conical talus-heaps '^^.
DENUDATION—FKOST-^rARKS.
Weight drives it duwu. Resistance stops it. h\ uiie
case Huid particles How ; iii the othei', solid particles move
and mark the ice-alphaljet on rocks.
1
LAND-ICE—MODELS. 1 73
shape, ami diiiiensions. If ice tioats, it moves like (tther
tloating l)odies. Snow, liail, and other Ijroken Ijits of un-
nielted water, roll and slide like sand, gravel, broken stones,
or such materials. The snow-shower which falls upon a
weathered peak forms a cone or pjTamid upon the narrow
base, and M'hen the base has reached the verge of the cliff,
the point of the A splits the falling stream, and makes the
tahis-heap ^ at the foot of the cliff.
The tops of the liighest snow-mountains appear to be
snow-heaps of this form. Drawings of the Himalayas repre-
sent them as sharp snowy peaks, resting upon rocky cliffs.
If snow never melted, it would everj^iere be packed in
conical heaps like volcanic dust. A snow angle of 32" on the
horizon expresses a temperature of 32° (Tig. 18, Snsefell, p. 85).
At some distance from the earth's centre, below the line
(if 32°, solid water does melt, and therefore large snow-
heaps are not conical when the base is low down. Snow-
cones rest upon melting bases. The frozen peak tends
to sink in out of the cold, and its weight pushes out the
warmer base and sides, and so drives the heap down hill into
the warmth ; where it melts and moves faster. Mont Blanc
and other high tops in Switzerland, ]S"or\\"ay, and Iceland, are
dome-shaped. Long snow-ridges like Langjokull (chap, xxv.)
are not angular like a house-top, but hog-backed. The snow-
spire or ridge-tile crushes the roof, and the walls bulge.
AMien the rumble of wheels becomes a muffled sound, and
the earth is white with fresh snow, hostile armies bombard
each other with snowljaUs. The soft downy crystals are
kneaded together, and become tough, firm, spherical missiles,
in which state they are like ni\i. "Wlien they are wetted
and frozen they are like glacier ice. Wlien one of these, bacUy
aimed at a passenger, liits a wall, it changes form, and sticks.
1 74 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
The force which drove it is turned aside ; one end is flattened
and spreads like a white star *; tlie other stands up like a
miniature snow mountain A. But the snowball, like the snow-
mountain, sticks together, because it is at a welding heat.
Because the wielding heat of ice is 32°, crushed ice mends.
A large mass subjected to hea\7^ pressure may be squeezed
into any mould. To use the modern word, glaciers " regelate."
The Ijase of the snow-mound shoved down by the top of the
heap is crushed into hollows, and pushed down into glens.
If it moves faster than it melts, the glacier passes under the
snow-line, and it may be launched in the sea at last.
It is not absolutely necessary to visit a glacier in order to
comprehend this movement. If the law is universal, snow-
balls and small experiments serve for illustrations, and good
photographs show the natural forms in miniature.
Experiment.
(1.) The talus-cone A, or the angle i^, may be made of
any materials. Let two lieaps of dry sand be made by pour-
ing sand through a funnel upon a tray. According to the
shape of the fragments, so is the angle of the heap ; l)ut the
sides generally make an angle of 32° with the horizon, and
that is the angle of talus-heaps, cairns, and scam*s every-
where. If water is dropped on one of the sand-heaps, it
loosens the mass, and the cone sinks doT\ai and spreads out
and takes a rounded form ^—s. Tliat is the outline of many
hills in the north (p. 20-4, and chap, xxv.)
(2.) Make similar heaps with dry salt or sugar, and the
cone which is wetted becomes a dome as the base melts and
yields to pressure.
(3.) Make the piles of snow or pounded ice, and they will
both change, as they melt side by side iu warm air.
LAND-ICE—MODELS. 1 75
(4.) jNIake a pile of wax-dust on a metal tray, and warm
the base. Tlie lowest of the angular fragments are next tlie
greatest heat, and furthest from the perpetual wax-line, so
the base of the cone melts. The fragments lose their angular
shape, and their hold upon each other below ; weight presses
dowTi the upper fragments which are not softened, and the
dome ^—s is produced from the cone A. If the heat is con-
tinued till the heap is melted, the cone becomes a plane ; Asinks do^vn ; X becomes • ; as in the case of a water
stream. The cone of wax, partly fluid partly solid, freezing
above, melting lielow, obeys the laws of heat and weight ; and
the mass sinks like a pile of wet sand, sugar, salt, or melting
snow.
By regulating the heat, and adding wax-dust, the top of a
heap near its welding heat (150°), may be kept at tlie same
distance from the tray. But if waste or supply be in excess,
the heap sinks or grows. It must be the same witli snow-
heaps of any size, when temperature is less than 32° at the
top of a hill, and more than 32° at the base.
(5.) To show that " regelation" is not peculiar to ice and
wax, but a quality common to many substances, heat a
l)lock of solder in an iron tray. At a particular temperature
the hard metal softens. The block may then lie crushed,
and kneaded into any shape, though the upper surface con-
tinues tough and brittle, tears and breaks. The structure
continues to be crystalline and granular ; but the mass is
plastic, like the ice of a glacier. If it cools, it freezes hard;
if it warms, it melts and runs like any other fluid ; but so
long as the welding heat is preserved in solder, it " regelates"
like ice.
Like hot solder, water is ductile at or about its freezmg-
point, and iron welds about the freezing-point of iron. One
1 76 DENUDATIOy—l<'i;<_)ST-MAnK8.
suljstance regelati'S at 32", another about 3000° ; but botli
weld when their melting surfaces are pressed together.
(6.) To give the exi")eriments a more definite meaning,
make conical heaps of plaster of Paris on a wet base, and the
plaster will set in the conical form of volcanic mountains.
Throw on dry sand, and wasli it down, and the sand will take
the shape of talus-heaps and plains of dust, which surround
Etna, Hecla, Snrefell, and other high volcanoes. Pour on salt
and sugar, and the same forms will result. Pile on snow, and
the heap will melt and settle about the base of the model as
water. "Wlien the water has found its place, cover the toy
with wax-dust, and light a lamp beneath one heap.
The wax-cone sinks when the momid is warm, as snow
melts on Hecla where the ground is warm to the hand. The
heap which covers the cold cone keeps its shape, as ice-cones
do on Snaefell where the ground is cold. If wax he added
the cones rise, if heat be increased they sink ; as the top of
Hecla rises in winter, and falls when the snow melts in
summer.
As the operation goes on, fluid wax nms from the base,
sinks into loose sand, flows over the surface, and under it
through sand, and over the plaster foundation of the model,
down to the water-level. The half-melted stream digs as it
flows. It pushes through the sand and makes hollows in it
like the Matatsch glacier (p. 143). It carries hard wax floating
upon the surface, and when it gets to the water and freezes,
the hardened wax-stream floats, like ice in the polar sea.
It carries sand, and contains air-bubbles ; it is a frozen
conglomerate as glacier-ice is.
Eeduce the heat and the model works slowly ; turn on
the gas and it works fiist. Sto]) the supply of wax and keep
up the heat till the stream has passed away from the surface,
LAND-ICE—MODELS AND SYMIiOLS. 177
and tlic tracks of the lialf-fVozeii stream wliicli moved over
the sand sunk int(j it, and flowed away ; the t()<tl-mark of tlie
wax-engine will l)e found in the path which it made and
followed from the peak A to the water-line —
.
Let the water yo, and it will carry off the wax-lloats AAA .
Take the wax conglomerate, l)reak it and pile it on the
tray once more, heat it to the melting-point of wax, and the
heap will take a new shape. The melted wax hecomes a
plane as water does ; the sand, freed from the cement whicli
bound it, takes the conical form of moraines and rul»l)ish-
heai)S shed from melting glaciers and stranded ice-Lergs.
Ft is the form of hills of loose ruhhish wliich rest iii)on
-polished rocks, on lofty plateaux, ;dl (.ver tlu' north ot
1 78 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS.
Scandinavia, in Scotland, Iceland, and elsewhere, in positions
which appear inexplicable, without the aid of floating ice.
The woodcuts are from drawings traced with a pencil
upon the glass of a camera obscura. The instrument was
aimed at a frying-pan. Fig. 33 shows a mass of wax and
sand confusedly heaped together.
Fig. 34 the same mass sorted by melting the wax over a
lamp.
In the one case the fractured masses had no definite
shape ; in the other they had become dome-shaped heaps of
rubbish, and they were sorted by weight and heat.
The frying-pan and its contents were aimed at land-ice,
whose movements are but modifications of flowing and slid-
ing, melting and freezing.
The snow which fell on the top of the Schveckhorn was a
cone. The avalanche which fell upon the glacier (p. 159) was
a talus-heap. The water which ^vas a freezing marsh of snow
and ice upon the glacier (p. 155) when the sun had set behind
a hill, had soaked through and wet snow, hail, ice, sand,
stones, mud, and boulders. At night it became a solid mass,
and bound the whole into a stratified bed of fusible conglo-
merate. The water which fell into the moulin, and ran out
of the ice-cave, melted the base of the heap mider which it
flowed. Wlien the smi set the supply was cut off, the sliding
decreased, and the water froze.' When a chink filled with
water froze at night, the ice-wedge pushed the sliding mass
and stretched it ; when it was crushed into a hollow it " rege-
lated " and mended, and water made the cement.
From peak to delta, the movmg mass of ice plum-pudding
stone, growmg above and wasting below, slides bodily over
the earth, making hollows and filling them ; rasping the rocks
over which it moves ; undermining its banks like a flowing
LAND-ICE—MODELS AND SYMBOLS. 179
river ; carrying stones like a stream of floats ; and floating
away with a cargo of broken stones when the frozen conglo-
merate is lighter than its bulk of lake or sea water, and is
launched from the rock-slip on which it was built.
The Alps are easily reached, and these simple experiments
may illustrate the sliding movements of land-ice.
Fig. 35. Making Tracks,
From a pen-and-ink sketch made soon after crossing the Strahlok, 1841.
CHAPTER XIV.
I'KNUDATION C)—FK0ST-MA1IK8 4—LAND-ICE 3—CONE—
SOUTIIEUN NORAVAY.
The ])()\vl'vs wliicli inovi! land-ice are weiglit and heal, and
models moved Ity tliese forces do similar work on a small
scale.
There are various forms in which ice moves, and the tool-
marks of this part of the denuding engine are various, like
river-marks. There are many rasps and gouges in a tool-
chest, and many kinds of land-ice in the world.
The model above described consisted of various parts.
1. A fusible cone of loose solid particles A ; a talus-hea]»
dropped from above, which changed into a dome-shape<l
mound ^—v when warmed.
2. A half-melted stream of wax which Howed from the
base, slid over sand, and marked out a groove in it v -.
3. A stream of lloats, which were pushed into water, and
carrieil away liy it.
It has now to be shown that like systems exist in nature,
and form part of a revolving atmospheric system which scul]v
tures mountain-forms.
Before examining tool-marks, the tools ought to be under-
stood ; and the conical luiap comes first in order.
The ojjposite coast of Norway is very easily reached from
England. A smaU'conical glacier is to be found near Bergen,
at llie head of the Sogne Fjord. It is constantly changing of
1 82 DENUDATION—FKOST-lNl ARKS.
from dome to cone, and IVoni cone to dome, as it rises and
sinks ; it works fast, and on a hot day it teaches more about
glaciers than any specimen known to the writer. A pilgrim-
age to see it in 1857 is thus described in a traveller's rough
journal
:
" Sept. 7th.—Started from rja}rland Fjord, with a man to
caiTy my traps, distance aboiit forty miles. No one about this
place seems to know whether it is or is not possible to get
over the mountains, but my man knows part of the way, and
the map has a track marked upon it. The porter said he had
often travelled with Englishmen, and he seems to he a kind
of idle, poachmg, good-for-nothing character, so we got on
famously. On our way we met a pretty girl, who asked myman if a certain old woman was at home. She, as it turned
out, is a witch, and the lassie was going to consult her about
some one who was in America. The man told her not to
believe such nonsense, but she said the Kona had done good
once before, and she went her way to the spsewife at Hafso.
I got another man who said he knew another bit of the way,
and we started in a boat, and rowed over a very pretty lake.
His sister had epileptic fits. I showed them my pedometer,
and other wonders, and the girl asked if I, who knew so many
things, could cure her?
" ' If I were well agam,' she said, ' I would not care if I
were as poor as a bird.'
" Poor girl, I could do nothing for her. I could only tell her
to avoid being alone, and tliat the illness was not dangerous.
I hope 1 told the truth, but I have my doubts. There were
several pelting showers this day, and I got my feet well wetted
in bogs after we landed. We walked over a pretty steep hill,
and got to a saetar, where a smiling maiden with a brown face
gave us a splendid feast of sour milk, and exclaimed, at a gift of
LAND-ICE—SOL'THEEN NORWAY—CONE. 183
fivepence. I sprang seven reiper ; Ijut my gun was in the cover,
so I shot none. When we left the Sffitar we descended into
the Sognedal valley, passing from gi-ay rock and lichens into
mountain pastures and birch woods. We came down at last
to a road, beside a pretty river of clear water, the first I have
seen for some days.
" My guide had come wrong. We are much too far down
the glen, so there was nothing for it but to put on the steam,
and walk up the road to the lower end of a large lake, at the
upper end of which was the place I wanted to reach—Saelseng.
It was a long way to walk, and it was getting late when we
arrived. No men were to be seen ; but on the other side of the
water we spied a black dog perched upon a boulder ; so we fell
to shouting, Lars ! Lars ! having learned that an individual of
that name abode there ; and presently Lars poked up his red
night-cap, and after some palaver, he and a friend pushed out
a leaky boat, and pulled over. The rain was pattering down,
but this could not be helped, so I got on board, and my guide
set oft' to walk ten miles over the fjeld. The whole of this
country is ice-polished, but the glaciers are out of sight.
This second guide was another sporting character addicted
to fishing and shooting ; and he told me that he had once
been attacked by an eagle, which flew at him, and flapped
about his ears, till he thought he would have been killed. He
drove the bird away at last with a stick.
" The change in the lang-uage, as one goes from glen to
glen, is very curious. A cow here is ' Nout,' as in Scotland;
to walk, is ' Tootla,' toddle. The stetar girl and the gxiide,
who live about seven miles apart, have different dialects, at
least so they said ; and in this they are like the natives of
all mountainous districts, from the Yorkshire dales to the
Antipodes.
18 t DENUDATION—FROST-MAltKS.
"Till! new crow rowed merrily up tlie lake, in M-hicli trout
were plunging in shoals. I ])aled and smoked, and answered
the usual questions. 1 am generally taken for an Eastlander,
t)r a German landscape painter ; and when I announce mycountry, there is always an exclamation of wonder, and a
shaking of heads. At ahout dark, my men stopped, and
walked me up to a house, where lived a man who knew tlu;
way to Fjan'land. He did not look up to my liack-load of
traps : hut there was no other man to lie got for love or
money, as I was tdld ; so T had to content myself with him.
I got some potatoes, and Fladl l>rod and cold water, and then
turned into a liay-loft; for 1 have had enough of peasant l»eds.
" I thought I was to have a quiet night, and began to change
my stockings in the dark on the hay floor, when 1 heard a lot
of voices chattering close to me.
" 'Have I com])any?' said 1.
" ' yes, we are three,' said a girl's voice ii'om amongst the
liay.
" 'And do you not slee]) in the house?' quoth T.
" ' No ; we always sleep in the hay in summer,' said another
female treble, ' because of the fleas.'
"Pleasant lookout for me ! Then; Avas no help for it. Jt
was raining cats and dogs outside, so I put on a waterproof
for a nightgown, and tunddeil in amongst the family; and
presently 1 heard them groaning, and kicking, and catching
ileas all round nie. 1 bad something to do in tlie same line
myself before long ; but 1 had walked twenty miles over the
fjeld with my gun and a, heavy kn.apsack ; and in spite of
(leas and family, 1 was soon last aslee]).
" T'iic>iday, 't^tli.—T was awakene(l bef(»re daylight by an
authoriiat-ive male voice, shouting ' Martlia !' and by the
kicks, and i»bniges, ;ind exclnmat ions of Martha afoi'esaid, who
LAND-ICE—SOUTHERN NORWAY— CONE. 185
only grunted ' Noy ! ncy !' and rolled aliout in the hay Yikc a
sleepy hedgehog.
" I rolled out of my nest, looked at the weather, and as there
was a glimmer of dawn, I used it to select a spot as distant
from my neighljours as possible, and went to sleep again.
But I was liardly asleep when my guide poked me up to say
it was time to he moving.
"I was as loth to rise as Martha had Iteen ; 1)ut I gave
a vigorous plunge, and stood on the floor, and looked ahout
me.
" I found I had hecn sleeping in a regidar nest of them,
big and little. Their lairs were all about in the hay, and
Martha, dimly visil)le, was still fast asleep, with a sheep-skin
rolled about her. She may have been about ten years old.
"Another girl now came out, and raked Martha out of the
hay with a rake ; and having seen that (»perati(3n ]»erformed,
1 too went into the house, took same cold potatoes, and colder
water, for breakfast, and started at 5.3(1.
" The weather looked threatening, Init it might hold up,
and the hills were clear of mist.
"A horse bound for a s;etar took my traps so far ; and we,
in light marching order, followed up a wild glen, and past
some mountain lakes.
" High above us, fjlaciers clung to the hillsides : and as we
went, the birches grew thinner and lower. We were getting
above vegetation, and into the snow once more. At one place,
my guide, an old fellow of sixty-five, showed me where a liear
had killed a cow aliout ten days liefore. I was. half inclined
to turn back and try for him, but the rain and the fleas were
too much for me, and we plodded on to the sa'tar, where our
traps were waiting. Here was a troop of sictar maidcms, liut
so different from some whom I have seen in the central
1 8G DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
districts, tliat they might liave been of a different country;
ugly, unkempt, dirty damsels, with a draggled petticoat and
a sackcloth shirt for clothing ; their sfetars without even a
stool to sit upon.
"An old woman volunteered to carry some ofmy traps to the
next sffitar, and we went on, makmg six miles of steep glen.
Here we stopped, and had a feast of milk and some cold meat,
which I had brought with me from Eoneidet ; and then the
sffitar girl took my fishing basket, and we went right up to
the top of the fjeld, and the snow. My gun and knapsack
felt heavy before I got to the top;.
l)ut I am getting into good
walking trim, and the day was cool, and we reached the top
all fresh, though it was a stiff brae.
" The girl was so exceedingly ugly, that I longed to take her
portrait. She had an enormously swelled face, and hair of such
an odd colour and texture, that I asked for a lock. It was like
the tail of a roan horse. She was a wonderful girl to walk.
Her bare legs were a mass of strings and sinews, and as she
walked up the steep hill, she knitted a stockmg without
seeming to breathe hard. On the top we parted ; my old
man shouldered the whole of his load, and we descended into
a deep glen, that ran right down to the fjord of Fjojrland.
" From this place, the views of the distant rounded moun-
tains, with snow-domes, and snow-wreaths, and glaciers
streaming from their sides, was very fine. But what pleased
me still more, was the sight of a lot of ptarmigan. I killed
two, and might have killed more ; "but the weather looked
threatening, ^nd I did not like to stay longer among the
stones. The old man was delighted. He chuckled and crowed
like a cock grouse when I killed the birds.
" The descent was by no means easy. It was very steep,
and the ground was composed of perfectly bare loose stones.
LAND-ICE—SOUTHERN NORWAY—CONE. 187
" I suppose they have not been clear of snow for many
years ; for the people tell me that they have never seen the
fjeld so clear. It was difficult to keep one's balance with a
back-load and a gun, but we got down safe to the head of the
glen, and sat down to smoke and feed and ruminate. The
gray rocks, the burn, and the gray sky, were so like Scotland,
and old times, that I could almost fancy myself at home again.
After a rest we marched on to a s?etar, where we got some
milk, and found a man with a wounded hand, who was going
our way with a back-load of cheese ; he was going over the
fjord, so we joined liim. The sfetar-path was nearly as bad
as the fjeld ; our new comrade was bare-footed, but he got
on as fast as we did.
" "When we got down to the birches we found people gather-
ing leaves, and mowing grass for their cattle. They told meI should find no one at the house, and they had no time to
row me to my destination, but I trusted to my one-handed
man, and went on. The houses when we reached them were
empty, but we passed on to the shore, and found a boat on
the strand. The owner was behind talking to some friends,
so I paid my old guide and sat down in solitude to smoke
and dream. We had walked sixteen miles, and over a high
pass ; I had a good load, and my man had a very heavy one;
but he set oft" home at once, overjoyed with about three
shillings.
" The lame man now came, and we rowed over the fjord
to a place where the priest sleeps when he comes to preach,
and where a lot of painters had lived for some time tliis
summer. There was not a living soul about the place when
we arrived, so I got in through a window and took possession
of the priest's room. As it grew dark people came tumbling in
from the woods where they had been working, and we had a
1 88 DENUDATION—FIJOST-MAEKS.
party round tlic fire at one of t]u> lioiisos. T could not under-
stand lialf tliey said, for I liad now (rot into a fresh dialect;
but I fancied my hostess was a witch or a doctress, for men
purchased mystei-ious oil fr(im a hottle, whieli was carefully
weighed ; and one pretty girl had a long earnest conversation
about some one who had been sick, and wlio was now " frisk."
There was an air of mystery al)Out my hostess, in addition to
the general odour of cormorants that pervaded her dwelling.
Presently the door opened, and the husband, ^ith a wet l)ag
and a creel of live fish, tumbled in ; and there we all sat with
our forces lighted \\\) l)y the wood fire, chattering like a fiock
of gulls ; while a little girl, who woke up at the noise, kept
screaming like a young cormorant from its nest, " Moor, gie mefisk." When supper was ready we supped, and I turned into
the hay-loi't as usual, l)ut this time I was alone.
" Wednesday/, 9th.—(Jailed before dawn by my host, who
M'as in a desperate hurry to be off to the woods, for the morn-
ing was fine. lie had no time to prepare food foi' me, but Jiis
two boys would row me to the end of the fjord, and I might
get something there. I told him to leave some cold jiotatoes,
and went to sleep for another hour. At. dawn 1 was up and
off to the river ; and when I came back I found the house with
my two boys, the cold potatoes, and the little girl with towzy
locks, whom I had lieard screaming for fish the night l>efore.
" Ilowed about two English miles to the head of the
fjord ; told the boys to meet me at 12.30, and walked five
miles and a half up the glen to the glacier. The glen is
beautiful. The bottom of it is Mat, and cidtivatcd ; and
the yellow corn on poles, gn-en birches, and neal cottages,
niad(! i)ictures at eveiy step. Tlicrc* was a ])retty tundding
burn by the way-side, and hills like sugar-loaves rose steej)
on either side. Between tlicst; llie edffe of the oreat snow
LAND-ICE—SOUTHERN NORWAY— CONE. 189
plutL-au cuuld be seen glittering here and there in its setting
of liare rock, and d(j-\vn the side of the valley the glacier
\\hich I had come to see streamed like a great snow-Lrae.
TJie sua shone brightly on the highest part of it, and there it
glistened like a sapphire. It was beautiful. When I got to
the foot of the ice, I scrambled over the moraine, and made
a sketch o[)posite to the ice-cave from which the river issues.
It was a dark blue cavern, with dripping roof and walls.
" The surface of the hard ice above was like a frozen sea,
1 )ut sprinkled with debris from the rocks.
" There was a gTeat precipice of bare rock above the lower
glacier, and above that the glittering blue ice hmig in the
most fantastic peaks and spires. Each time the hot sun
shone upon this broken edge, from behind drifting clouds,
great wedges of ice came thundering down the rocks, brcjke to
powder, and formed a fresh layer on a white cone.
" These avalanches looked like clouds of white dust, l)ut 1
liad heard the roar of their fall six miles off, out on the fjord.
Every now and then the glacier below which I was sitting
gave a kind of groan, as it took a start down hill. (It was
melting below, and growing at the top like the pile of wax in
the model.) Altogether it was unlike anything I have seen,
and it was the best practical lesson I ever had in the ways of
glaciers.
" Conical heaps that have puzzled me elsewhere, were ex-
plained here, for they were in preparation before my eyes.
" The snow in melting gathers into rivers on the surface
of the ice. These scoop out channels into wliich they sweep
loose stones, which fall on the ice from the rocks above ; and
then the stream shoots out the stones, as one might ponr
sugar from a scoop, or lead washings from a buddle.
" Tl)e glacier in course of time retires or melts away ; the
190 DENUDATION—FROST-MAEKS.
heaps of stones get overgrown with luoss and trees, and there
remaui conical hills of gravel of a particular shape. Other
glaciers do likewise, but this one is on a great slope, works
more rapidly, and in a hot day the whole process of glacial
action is seen in an hour.
" There was a heap of loose stones ten feet high within
ten feet of the ice ; and above it was the scoop from which
it had been shot, and the great ice-brae itself, of similar
form shot from the rocks. Similar bare stony heaps were
near, some with moss growing on the stones ; further off
were older heaps, with scattered trees and thin grass ; and
close to these was a thick birch wood, growing upon a still
older moraine, while the sides of the glen were crumbling
piecemeal upon the ice, and the high glacier itself was falling
in icy dust over the crags." (The ice-cone was melting, spread-
ing, slipping, grindmg, groaning, and polishing rocks, as other
ice-cones have done for ages at some former period over the
whole of Scandinavia, as glaciers are now spreading and
sliding on high plateaux above the Sogne Fjord, in Iceland,
and in Switzerland.)
" But my feet were wet, and it was precious cold sitting
there sketching and speculating, and time was up, so I
gathered up my goods and walked back to the shore again.
A hundred yards from the ice the climate was that of
another region, and about 400 yards off there was a field of
ripe corn, and a very hot sun, which caused aU the movement
in air and water, and aU the polishing on these rocks."
The form of a terminal moraine dropped in air is then a
repetition of the conical rubbish-heap shown in the woodcut,
which may be copied by pourmg sugar out of a scoop.
Supedledals glacier is a standard form to M'hich to refer
larger heaps A.
LAXD-ICE—SOUTHERN NOKWAY—CONE. 191
The seed is dust ; the spray of an ice-cataract which falls
from au ice-cliff, and forms a conical heap of tains, which rests
against the rock. In the woodcut the conical form is sho^^^l
white on a dark backgroimd, which is scom-ed by the faUing ice.
The glacier on which these avalanches fall continually
would mount up to the upper level in a few days, if the base
of the cone did not melt. Numerous streams trickle down the
rocks from the upper ice and wet the base ; it is close to the
sea-level, in a glen where corn ripens, and where a hot sun
shines, so the base melts and the cone sinks in, and the glacier
spreads out like wax in the model, or a snowball on the wall.
In every direction it pushes out, and where it pushes it
grinds with all the force of a mass of blue ice, wliich covers
about a square mile of ground, and is about 1500 feet high.
If the ice-cliff behind the rubbish-heap is comj^ared to a
graving-tool, its ploughing action is manifest. JNIarks made
by it must radiate from the notch in the hiUs from which the
avalanches faU. Eubbish-heaps shed from it must surround
the base in ramparts of conical mounds. The movement may
be seen and heard, and old tool-marks are to be seen on rocks
beside the moving ice.
Further south, about the Hardanger Fjord, are other
conical glaciers. One heap is constantly falling over a cliff,
but it melts abnost as fast as it falls.
If the climate of this region gets warmer from any cause,
the Fjaerland glacier will dwindle. If the climate cools, the
Hardanger specimen will grow, and Supedledals will rise to the
upper fjeld, and perhaps stretch down to the sea.
The principle on which the engine works is the same as
that of the wax toy. It is the same in a snow-slide from a
house-top, in the avalanche which falls in the Alps, in the
glacier drawn in the woodcut, and the same laws govern the
192 DENUDATION—FHOST-MAIUvS.
inovenicuts of larger lieaps wliicli iall from the sky, aud
spread their bases over great tracts of country.
Supedledals glacier is a small local ice-system, detached
from the larger system, whose broken edge is seen against the
blue sky above it.
From the Col de Geant a wide view of the Alpine local
system is got. It has been mapped and described by able
pens, aud it consists of a series of high centres, from which ice-
streams radiate, as rivers do from Highland hills. In Scan-
dhiavia and in Iceland the principle is the same. The dimen-
sions and details of the engine differ ; but wherever there is a
mountain or mountain-chain high enough to pierce the shell
(jf temijerature which freezes water, there the solid edge of the
water-wheel comes down and grinds rock. Snow falls, a heap
forms, river-glaciers stream from the base, and the grinding work
done is tlie tool-mark of land-ice driven by heat and weight.
The marks of tin's tool are radiating stars or portious of stars,
or marks like ruflcrs in a, roof when the system is on a ridge.
CHAPTEE XV.
DENUDATION 7—FROST-MARKS 5—LAND-ICE 4—RIVER-
GLACIERS—SOUTHERN NORWAY 2.
The next ice-tool is the " Eiver-glacier." It is the equivalent
of the stream in the wax model, and large specimens abound
in the Alps. For example, the dome of Mont Blanc, 14,700
feet high, with a temperature of 26°, is a high cold centre
from which glaciers slide into hoUows, and diverge, like
flowing rivers. Of these, the iVIer de Glace is the biggest and
best kno\vn ; and the rest of the system which springs from
Mont Blanc is familiar to Alpine travellers.
Justedal's glaciers, in the Bergen district, are nearer to
England, and good specimens. They are less known, so the
following extract from a journal of a trip to visit them is
quoted :—
*
" Wednesday/, Sept. 2d, 1857.—Landed at Eoneidet about
3, and after getting food from its hospitable inhabitants,
set off at 4 with a boy, and a horse to carry my goods up
the Justedal.
" The track follows the river, winding up a deej) narrow
gorge between enormous rocky hills. Here and there is a
* These Bergen glaciers were visited, descrilx'd, and sketched by Forbes
{Norway and its Glaciers visited in 1851 ; Edinburgh, 1853). The work
should be consulted for a scientific account of these and other natural features
of Norway. It is satisfactory to find that sketches made on the sjiot by diffe-
rent hands resemble each other in their main features. See p. 209, and litho-
gi-aphs by Forbes.
O
194 DENUDATION—FRuST-MAKKS.
stony ])laiii, the debris ol' a t^lacicr, overgrown with trees;
Imt distant views tlien; were none. I had to walk hard to
save daylight. At the end of twelve long miles by pedometer,
I found myself at a farm, and as I walked up I heard a fidtUe.
I thought that promised fun, so walked in and asked for
quarters. I fovmd four or five tall strapping young fellows
—
the best grown men I have seen in Norway—and a girl to
match, sitting about a long talile listening to the music,
while the girl brushed her long frowsy locks with a carding
comb. There was a general promise of fleas about the place,
but 1 tucked my trousers into my S(icks, according to the old
plan first learned in Greece, and sat me down with tlu^
family. It was dark outside, but a bright fire and a single
candle lit iip the Avild unkempt heads nodding to the music.
" T asked for old Norsk ditties, and got several. I*re-
sently a vast su]i})er of porridge was produced, and the fiddle^
paused, while I smoked my pipe.
" Supper over, tlie fiddle began again. I'resently one of tlie
young giants in leather breeches sprang on the floor, seized
the giantess who made the porridge, and began a polska. lie
trotted round the roc»m, holding her hand, while she toddled
after him. Presently the girl was spun round and round like
a teetotum, showing such powerful understanduig that I
marvelled ; and then she was seized round the waist, and
they both twirled together. Then they ambled about as lie-
tore, tjicn tliey liad another fit of spinning till they M'cre
tired; and tlicii another giant took the floor alone, and \)vv-
fonued the Hailing dance.
" It was an odd performance, more like tumbling tlian any-
thing else, and when it was over tliey incpiired if 1 could do
anything.
" Tlie music was somethinu lik(^ reel time, so I took tlie
LAND-ICK—SOUTHERN NOKWAY— KIVKK-* II.AfUEKS. 1 95
tioor, and p(.'r[onno(l sundry loel ,st('i>,s, amidst tlic most tiat-
tering exclamations— ' That karl can use his feet.' ' It is not
the first time tliou liast danced.' ' That was supx^le,' and
so on.
" So encouraged I performed ' Jacky-Tar,' blushed mo-
destly, and retired to bed. I had my doubts of the couch, for
it was in the family store-room, where winter garments were
hung, so turned in all standing, and tried to sleep ; l)ut it
was quite hopeless. There was a regular hailstorm of starv-
ing fleas pattering down upon my face from the winter
clothing, creeping al)out my feet, and getting through myarmour everywhere. I stood it for some time, but at last 1
jumped up, gathered my wra]is, and marched out of doors.
I believe tliey would have picked my bones liefore morning ii'
I had stayed in the bed. I found a liarn, open at l)oth ends,
with some straw, and there camped. Presently the moon
rose over a lofty hill, and I began to rejoice in the agreealile
change, and to enjoy the view ; but for me there was no rest
that night. I hatl a whole colony with me, and they were
industrious fleas. I got up twice, stripped, and shook myclothes ; Init it was all in vain. No sooner laid down than
they began to dance polskas, ballings, and reels, up and down
my arms and legs. At last I fell asleep in spite of them.
" Thursday, Sept. ?>d. — I was hardly asleep when an
old fellow awoke me. I was sleeping across the barn door,
and he wanted to begin his work, as it was daybreak. I was
too sleepy to stir, so he rummaged about amongst the straw
and departed ; Init he was soon back again with my host, ex-
claiming, that this ' fremande karl ' was a ' frisk person,'
because he was sleeping out, biit that lie must go away from
there. They stirred me up, and sliowcd me to a hay-shed, so
I took my plaid once more and flitted.
196 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
" There was a gvaiul lot of dry hay, and I was about to
throw myself upon it, when I perceived a dog curled up in a
nest ; the next step was almost into the mouth of my boy, who
was sound asleep, and covered with hay ; the next I found a
vacant corner for myself, and took it, when, to my wonder, up
sprang the dancing giantess, over whom I must have walked.
She shook her long elf locks, gaped horridly, and departed;
and I went really to sleep at last.
"At 7 I was stirred up once more, fed on potatoes
and cold water, and departed. As soon as I got to a river
I bathed, and routed the hostile army.
" Walked seven English miles to the priest's house, and
seven more to the great glacier. I was very tired for want of
sleep, and took a snooze in a field by the way. It was very
hot, the way was steep, but very beautiful. The valley is
narrow, shut in by grand steep rocky mountains, with firs
and birches growing in crannies in the rock. Here and there
one gets a view of still higher hills beyond. The rocks below,
and to a great height, are all smoothed and polished.
" I had some thick milk at one cottage, and at the glacier-
foot I found a newly-made wooden hou.se, in which was a
clean loft to sleep in. The owner, a cheery old woman, had
milk and potatoes in abmidancc, and was kind and hospitable
to the 'wayfaring man.' She gave me some clean hay, and
when I had made a nest for myself, I made a sketch of the
glacier.
" It is the finest I have seen in Norway, and is worthy of
Switzerland. It comes streaming down a great valley to the
left, down to the houses and corn-fields, like a frozen torrent
winding through the glen. It seemed about an English mile
wide, and some five or six long ; it makes three great bends,
and as I saw it half in light, half in purple shadow, in its
11)8 DENUDATION—FKOST-MARKS.
setting of bright ruck, it lookml glovinu.s. A iVail wooden Itridge
si)ans the clay-coloured lorreiit that Hows from the glacier,
and herds of goats and cows were passing back and forwards
to the stctar to be milked. Each beast as it came walked up
1(> look at me. An old while bull stared at me gravely for
ten minutes ; he was within a yard, and once 1 thought he
meant to give me a poke with his stumpy horns, so I sliyed
a stick at him ; whereon he switched his tail, gave a grunt,
and marched off with slow dignity.
" When the sun had set, it got very cold, and I was glad
to have a drink of milk and turn in.
" My hostess took me for the head of a road-surveying
party, who have been marking out a post-road, to replace the
horse-track in this valley.
" Friday, Sept. 4th.—Up at 7, and into the river, which
was like ice. Breakfast was 'greasy porridge' made of oat-
meal and cream, with a lump of butter in it, as cooked for
Ijriests and people whom they wish to treat well.
" 1 could not manage it, so drank some sweet milk and set
olf with a boy of twelve, and a little black dog, for a high
[K)int right above the house. I wanted to sec the high
ground from which the glacier comes. 1 never had such a
climb in my life. I could not stand upon the slippery grass
in many places, and was forced to take my shoes off. Even
then I slid back occasionally. The rocks were overgrown
\\\i\\ blaeberries, strawberries, and berries of many sorts ; the
air was perfumed with them ; and we feasted as we went.
The heat was like India. 'J'lie black dog panted, and lolled
out his tongue, and lay down on the grass ; and I was glad to
rest every now and then and look down upon the roofs of the
liouses. At last \\v got aliovc tlie trees, and then above the
grass, and the footing on the bare stones was better. We
LAND-ICE—SOUTHERN NOKWAY—KIVER-GLACIERS. 199
cliinljcd on to a large stone, wliicli I had made out witli luy
glass from the houses below, aud which was uiy point ;liut
here we could see nothing for another pitch of hare broken
rock with patches of snow, which lay behind the stone.
" ^ly boy and I sat down, and lunched on bread and
cheese, and snow water ; and then up we went once more,
climbing by a goat's road over the rocks.
" It was well worth all the trouble, for I never saM' so wild
and desolate a scene.
" To the west was the grand rolling plateau of snow from
which the glaciers slide. It was glittering in the bright sun
with one great steep snow-capped rocky mountain rising in the
midst. The rocks aljout me were nearly as white as the
snow itself, with dark patches here and there, where moss and
lichen had found space to grow.
" To the south was the valley which I had followed from
the sea, with a great glacier-river thundei'iug down it, and here
and there on hill-sides, and perched in shelves, I could make
out distant mountain st^-tars. With my old conn-ade the
glass, I could see cows and goats clustering about the little
wooden houses ; but with the naked eye nothing was visible
from my perch, but a few patches of greener vegetation, sky,
snow, and barren rocks.
"Far away to the east, hardly to be seen without the
glass, were the Skagastol peaks, which I left on Tuesday
—
seven great mountains peering over the hills on the other
side of the valley. Fig. 31, p. 139.
" To the north, at the head of the valley, was the fjeld as
it exists in Norway—a great rolling plateau, a wilderness of
stones, rocks, snow-wreaths, lichens, and desolation.
"T sat on the highest rock I could find Inr an lumr,
gazing and dreaming as one must dream wlicn sti ])laced. I
200 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS.
can neither explain nor express the pleasure which it gives meto sit thus perched on a rocky point, high above the visible
world, and glower and dream alone ; but here I had my fill
of mountains and solitude. I left my perch with regret at
last, and scrambled down to the big stone. There I took the
distance of the house with my telescope, and made it about
three and a half miles. I had made it four and a half by pedo-
meter, and I think I must have gone up 5000 feet. It cost
me four hours and a half
" On the way down we found a snow-slope, which we could
walk iipon, and got down famously for some distance. Wlien
we left the snow, we got to ptarmigan ground, and the dog
put up several. I sliot one, and then took to beating about
for more. I saw a lot, and killed three, to the intense joy of
Thugu, the boy, who kept exclaiming
—
"' Ney ! ney ! he shoots in the air ! Ney ! ney ! ney !
'
" I was not sorry, for I thought of dinner.
"A little lower down we got into very bad walking
—
great rounded slopes of rock, where a goat could hardly stand,
and where we could not stand at all. We were forced to
coast about, seeking for grassy places to rest our feet upon,
and for trees to hold on by, and then we were out of the
shooting-ground. Then we got lower down, to places M'here
grass had been mown and leaves gathered in for the cattle.
Then we reached the corn-land ; and, last of all, we got to
the horse-track ; and, when we got there, most English paths
would have been as turnpike roads to it. But it was a turn-
pike to us after our climb, and we stepped out merrily to the
house, which we reached at 7.
" We were ten hours walking eleven and a half miles by
pedometer.
" I had eaten but little food for some days, and I was not
LAND-ICE—SOUTHERN NORWAY—RIVER-OLACIERS. 201
going to trust my spoil to the old woman to ruin ; so I took
my birds to a log, plucked a couple, cut them up, washed
them, and set them to boil with a lot of potatoes in a large
black pot. The result, eaten in the dark, was such a feast as
aldermen never taste, and cannot imagine ; and the pipe and
the sound sleep in the hay that followed were as good in
their own way as the feast."
This " River-glacier" is a stream of half-melted ice and half-
frozen water flowing from tlie base of a snow-dome in a liol-
low trench. It is freezing and thawing, hardening and melt-
ing, shrinking and stretching ; but it is always sliding down
in a rocky glen, which it grinds continually. The rate varies
in summer and Avinter ; the hotter it is, the faster the ice
moves ; but there is no rest, though the movement is imper-
ceptible here. When ice gets down to the warm regions
which underlie the upper regions of cold ; when it passes far
enough under the line of 32°, the " River-glacier" melts and
becomes a glacier-river. The water, heavy with mud, runs off
to the sea, with a load of chips scraped out of the rock-groove
by the ice ; and, when it has dropped that load, water rises
from the sea as vapour, and flies back to the hill-top to add
to the snow-heap, and help to shove on the hea\y ice-rasp,
which makes the solid edge of this graving wheeL
But each river-glacier is part of a complete local system.
The glacier at Fjperland (p. 181) falls from the edge of a
snow-plateau ; the glaciers in Justedal flow from it ; the
dome (p. 204) is the centre of the system, as Mont Blanc is
the centre of a local system in the Alps.
202 DENUDATION—FROST-MAltKS.
This Norwegian licap is twenty miles wide, i'urty long;
the top is ()44() Norsk feet above the present sea-level, and
one part of it nearly reaches the coast at Fjferland. The whole
is a local system, whose source is in the clouds, and whose base
rests on a rock-plateau, which is wearing away to the amount
of the mud carried to sea by the rivers.
rja3rlands glacier is a young system dropped by the
large one ; as some sea-creatures multiply by dividing them-
selves into little bits. Having seen it move, a glance shows
how the parent heap is moving. The Justedal's river-glacier
(p. 197) is winding like its glacier-river, as shown in the fore-
ground of the woodcut (Fig. 38) ; or like the Thames at
Windsor (p. 114) ; or like the Findhorn (p. 130).
It cannot be seen to move, but it is easy to see how it is
moving. It is swinging from side to side, rebounding from
bank to bank, eddying in the lee of projecting points, sweep-
ing round bays. It is rasping its bed ; undermining, under-
cutting, and breaking down its rocky banks. Lik(3 a river,
it is flowing, though slowly ; and its movements are guided
by the shape of the bed which it wears in the rock.
The Fjicrland glacier is like a waterfall ;—like Tann Foss,
falling from one lake into another (p. 101). The Justedal
glacier is like a water-slide rolling down a slope ;—like Troll-
hattan (p. 103). Ink-dro})S (p. 90), snow-flakes, conical snow-
heaps, rounded ice-domes, winding ice-streams, and glacier-
rivers, all move for the same reason—they arc (Iragginl down
by weight, and press each other on.
As water-streams carry floats of ice, logs, boats, sticks,
and froth, while they roll mud, clay, sand, gravel, and stones;
so ice-streams carry floats, and push and roll sunken materials.
Large rocks which I'ali from clin's arc ranged in lines on the
ice, as logs are ranged liy a Norwegian river (p. 124), or a tiect
LAND-ICK—SOUTHERN NoltWAY—KIVER-GLACIEIJS. 203
of boats by the Thuiiies (p. ll'.'j. lUit ice Ijeiiig water in
another condition, the glacier contains M'hat water holds sus-
pended.
It is a conglomerate of air, sand, nuid, stones, and frozen
water like the frozen wax (p. 17G).
So in moving through a rock-groove, this heavy, flexible,
viscous rasp grates and grinds, breaks and crushes, thrusts,
rolls, and drags anything that comes in the way. If water
flows round a sunken stone on a warm day, it becomes a vice
at night ; it clasps the stone, binds it to the moving mass,
and grhids it against the rock like an iron in a wooden
plane. If the tool is not strong enough to crusli a rock, it
is flexible, and the weight behind pushes it over ; if it is
broken, it mends itseK. Wherever it goes the ice-tool grinds;
it works broken stones into polished b(julders, boulders into
mud, fractured rocks into roches moutonnees, and mountain-
glens into rounded, polished, striated rock-grooves, whose
general section is a curve >—^. \Vheu the ice melts floating
cliips are left in the groove, in their order.
This is at best a veiy imperfect description of a glacier;
tlie science of the matter will be foimd elsewhere, in works
written by men who have made the subject their special
study.
Tliese differ on some points of detail, but all agree that
glaciers move and mark rocks.
The lesson learned from these Norwegian glaciers is that
a local land-ice system consists of a number of revolving
water-systems, which rise np from warm regi(jns, uKjve in the
air, fall on cold solid rock, slide and flow from it ; carving
hollows on hill-sides, and leaving tracks everywhere on the
downward path, which leads water luxck to the sea from a
block of high lanl
204 DKNUDATION—FROST-MARKi=.
The river-glacier is part of tlie system ; it is a graviui
tool ; and it does notal)lo work near Cergen.
Till Am/,(;/,/ f,iw, fl/ ifs iiinrAs niiti c/ii/'s Sno-i' i/(Vi i —~
I at ^( rock-groove U ///^ ///(;< In d IId Is oi.
Fi(!. :iO. Kaai THK (IHH.
Sp],!,. .1,
CHAPTER XV r.
DENUDATION 8— FROST-MAllKS G—LAND-ICE 5—LOCAL SYSTEM
—SOUTHERN NORWAY 3.
From the movements of land-ice it is easy to learn the direction
of tool-marks wliich result from the movement.
In Justedal, as elsewhere, marks are conspicuous under
and near the ice. Rocks are rounded, smoothed, and grooved
;
and because the grooves are the tracks and ruts of the ice-
sledge, they all lead various ways back to the watershed.
From the source of the glacier—from the highest point ; from
Kaabe—lines nmst radiate to the sea, through every glen
which holds part of the drainage of the ice-field. The mark
of the local land-ice system is a star * or some other radiat-
ing figure ; or a herrmg-bone pattern, on a ridge. Wliere ice
has made its mark, and melted, the shape of an old local
system may be learned from old rock inscriptions carved by
it, and from stranded chips.
Large as this Norwegian local system now is, it was larger.
Old work done by Justedal ice is seen in the glen through
which it flows. Close above the ice a higher ice-level is
marked on the rocks by a lighter line, where even lichens
have failed to grow. The woodcut (p. 197) shows the line,
but in nature it is conspicuous. That line marks a recent
change of climate, as surely as the scale of a registering ther-
mometer marks temperature. But that line marks a small
change ; it is but one degree.
LANL)-I(!E—NORWAY—LOCAL SYSTEM. 207
Older marks sliow a lower temperatures and i'ar larger
glaciers in this glen. In the woodcut (to the left) is a point
of rounded bare rock, which proves, hy its shape, that the ice
flowed over it. It is a " tor;" Init the ice was far deeper. Far
lip on hill-sides, as in Fig. 39, p. 204, great stones are perched
upon rounded tables of rock, and high up and low down, on
the sides and on the bottom of the glen, horizontal grooves
and scratches point from the hills out to sea. These cross the
run of streams which now flow from the hills into the glen
where the ice is. Nearer to the sea where branch glens join
a larger stem, and ice becomes a river, Justedal bears the
same marks up to 4000 or 5000 feet, and these extend for thirty
miles to the fjord. Every liill is rounded, and great stones
hang poised where they were stranded by land-ice, or l)y ice-
floats. The bottoni of the valley, all the way to the sea, is
strewed with drift, with clay, gravel, and l^oulders, arranged
in the form of moraines which have been washed out of shape.
Here are chips, tool-marks, and the tool at work ; and these
strange hill-forms (Fig. 40) arc the sculpture. It is plain that
rivers and weather have done little since ice left these glens.
But this is not all. Tliese same marks extend down the
Sogne Fjord for a hundred miles. From the Sgagastol peaks
(p. 139), 8000 to 9000 feet high, from the FiUe Fjeld below,
from the highest ground, througli every branch glen and fjord,
down to the outermost island in the firth, these tool-marks
can be traced upon rocks in situ. So the local system, whose
centre is Bodal's Kaabe, and whose base covers about 80(1
square miles, is but a sorry descendant of a Ingger race.
There were, as it seems, old Norwegian river-glaciers in
this district, which were as long as the largest of the Nor-
wegian fjords, which slid out to sea a hundred miles from
their l)irthplace on the fjeld ; and when iceliergs were thus
launclied here, the sli})S were set for Shetland.
208 DENUDATION—FROST-MAEKS.
Amongst the stones left at home by this particular Sogue
Fjord glacier, are large rounded blocks of granite. If ice-
floats were freighted with such stones, they should remain
somewhere to tell the story of their voyage, and mark a sea-
level ; if the sea was higher on any other coast where the
icebergs were wrecked.
Hardanger.
Where there is one local ice-system, others generally
flourish in the same neighbourhood.
In the Hardanger, south of the Sogne Fjord is a large
snow-heap, called the Folge Fond. It stands on a high rock
plateau, nearly surrounded by deep fjords. At Bondhuus, a
steep glacier flows down from the Fond to within five miles
of the sea.
The river which escapes from it runs into a lake, which
is dammed up by enormous boulders. The lake drains
through these, and the water brawls out near the shore clear
as crystal, and ice cold. The woodcut is froTu one of several
sketches made on the spot. The boat which ferried Forbes
to the foot of the glacier had sunk, so the time told off for
inspecting the ice was spent in sketching.
The movements of this glacier cannot be seen, but the
form shows that it moves like a steep water-slide. Lines
cross from side to side, and cui-ve and wind less than they
do in the glacier (page 197), where the slope is less.
The ice-mark in this case is plain. A mountain-torrent
cuts angles V L ; this glacier wears curves ^>—^ ^, and
when it was bigger, it shaped the middle distance beyond
the green lake into a big curve, at the bottom of which the
river is now beginning to saw, and sort ice-chips.
But here, as in the Sogne Fjord, are records of glaciers far
larger than any which survive in Europe.
210 )KNUr)ATIOX—FlidST-MAKKf
AVIk'11 the sleep liills are sealed in any part of the
llanlanucr Fjord they are found to l)ear the same marks
from toj) to bottom,
S from one end of the
fjord to the other.
The woodcuts
may give some
notion of the form.
At Sondhord (see
map) are small
glaciers.
The Voring Foss
is below Sondhord
at a line which
crosses the river.
Fig. 23, page 100,
was sketclied from
G in the direction
marked by the
arrow.
Fig. 41 (Bond-
Imus glacier) was
sketched from (1) ;
Fig. 43, p. 215, was
sketched from a
point (2) higli
above the fjord on
the way down from
tlic Folge Fond,
wliich is rudely
shown by the curved lines about the letter S.
The river which drains the glacier of liondhuus enters
-TO-
LAND-ICE—NORWAY—LOCAL SYSTEM. 211
the fjurd tu the left of the cut (}). 215), behind a tall birch
tree. The calm fjord was marked by curved streams of water
or wdnd flowing up the hollow groove, and hanging on its
sides. Wind and tide are at work ; they have not yet worn out
the tool-marks of ice which abound near the shore ; but they
have quarried a few cliffs, to show what a sea-mark is. In
the fiats are plains of clay and drift ; the bottom of the
fjord is strewed with glacial debris wherever it can be
reached ; and close to the water's edge is a terrace imder Axater.
Uuless the old ice which made these marks was afloat at a
high level, the Hardanger glacier was more than a himdred
miles long, as deep as the hollow in which the fjord now ebbs
and flows, and when launched, the floats started south-west-
wards for Scotland ; for this slip aims about the firths of
Forth and Tay.
This tract of country is frequented l)y bears, red-deer, roe,
fallow-deer, reindeer ; and elk, as it is said.
Of the bears many tales are told.
A boatman told as of his own knowledge, that a man M-ho
lived at a house high up on the mountains went up after a
flock of sheep one morning.
" His flock came to him, as flocks do in Xorway ; but
they came in a vast hurry pursued by a big bear. The
man stood up valiantly, and the bear did the same.
" The man hit the bear over the nose with a big stick, and
Bruin gripped hini. He tore him badly, but the man had
presence of mind enough to sham death, and the brute left
him badly mauled. He got home, and he had recovered."
Here is another bear story from the Sogne Fjord.
"A man walked up the mountains one day after his
sheep, and high up he fell in with a young bear. He hit
him over the head with a stone and stunned him ; but he
212 DENUDATION—VKOST-MAKKS.
had time to w^uall l.cluiv ]ir fainted. Tlio Ht[\\:\]\ l.roviulit
tlie whole faiiiily to his aid. There were father and mother,
two year-ohls, and a well-grown hal>y ; and they all fell npon
tlu! man at once. They knocked him down, bit him, clawed
him, and rolled him about ; but tlie man shammed death, and
after a time the bears left him. When he thought the coast
was clear, he rose and made for home ; but the five bears
were at hand, and chased him. He ran as best he could, and
(nided l)y tumbling over a rock on to a ledge, where he lay
stunned. The rock was low, the shelf was narrow, and below
it was a cliff.
"The bears dared not venture to leap down, so they
stretched out their black paws, and growled over the wounded
man. The biggest of them conld just reach the man's head,
and he clawed it so vigorously that he scalped him, and the
ill-treated shepherd fainted. When he recovered the liears
were gone, so he scrambled up and ran to the nearest house.
" He was doctored, and he recovered ; and the doctor who
cured him told the tale to a Norwegian gentleman, who
retailed it at Bergen, Septend)er 10th, 1857."
Even here, with glaciers about them, perched boulders
seem to be strange and sn])ernatural. Here is a boatman's
aeeouiit of an " erratie" :
—
"On tliat rock (a high peak in the Hardanger, altout
seven niih's away) sat a waiTior ; on the other side of the
I^jord live(l a wilcli wlioni he wanted to marry ; she refused,
so he cast a stone at liei', which she saw connng, and avoided.
The stone is there yet, and the distance is more than a Norsk
miU'."
Here loo the ice-World is mysterious. A l)oatman declared
tliai his mollier, wlieii a girl, had seen a tlock of mysterious
cows neaithe l''olge Fond at '\' iggra Stola. Tlie}' vanished and
LAND-ICE—NORWAY—LOCAL SV.STKM. 213
they were "Huldra Bcasto." Under the Folge Fond, aecurdin^
to peasants, are seven parishes, which were overwhehned for
wickedness. The cliurch bells may still be heanl ringing on
certain holy days.
So ice and its works seem strange even to men who are
familiar wdth glaciers; and large wild animals, men, and their
works, can and do exist together with land-ice, aljout lat. CAf N.
The conntry at the end of the Hardanger is thus de-
scribed :
—
" At Eids Fjord got a small boy to help to carry some of
my traps, and walked up to the lake. It is the wildest tarn
T ever saw, with sides perpendicular and impassable. Ont^
half of the mountains were in l)right sunshine, the other in
dark blue shadow. The water comes from Xormand's jokelen,
and as glacier-water it is light green. I got a boat, and myboy rowed me to the upper end, about three miles, to CJaratun.
I sent him with my sleeping gear to a house, and put up myrod and fished the river which runs in at the end. It ^\•as
thick witli siiow-Nvater, l)ut I killed a five-pound sea-trout,
and raised four more fish. 1 gave it up altout 8. The
river which runs out is a capital fisliing-station, Ijut it A\'as
occupied.
"The place I slept at is a cluster of houses built on a plain,
which was evidently formed by some old world glacier at the
bottom of a lake (or the sea). It is all cultivated, and as flat
as my hand. It is cpiite sliut in l)y enormous rocks, with
trees clinging in their cracks, and it is about the wildest hole
I over was in. The people are like Finns ; dark-haired, dark-
eyed, grave, queer-looking mortals ; standing in attitudes that
reminded me of the Tana people. j\I}' host was a Finn all
over, but a good sort of chap. lie and Ids Itrothei' had hwuto Finnmark for reindeer. Thov bought a herd, and travelled
214 DEiNUDATIOX—FliOST-MAKKS.
for eight weeks over the snow. They made about 300
dollars l)y their venture. T slept in the loft amongst the house-
hold gear, and spent the evening at the house door, surrounded
by the whole population ; all jawing, smoking, spitting, and
wondering ; and I for one enjoying the jiarty.
" ISfh.—Up early ; carried nothing ; ate cold salmon and
lladl)r()d, and set oft" for the Voring. The way lies along the
river, up a wild gorge. I^^very here and there it leads up a
stair of rough flat stones, or over a ridge of ice-polished rock.
The river is crossed by bridges, frail and shaky to a degree
(p. 100). Two pine logs are set up at each side of the river,
and on these logs rest two long trees. Planks cross these,
and through the openings the water can be seen tumbling
over great boulders underneath. There is not a shadow of
a hand-rail, and when one walks fast, the whole structure
shakes and swa.}'s al)0ut as if it must come down. About
five miles up the river the road turns to the right, and goes
about 1500 feet up a very steep face. The way is a stone
stair winding about amongst the debris of the higher rocks.
And yet it is up this road and over these bridges that people
ride to the foss. After this steep pitch the fjeld is reached.
It is a great waving plain, with liirches and muirs, covered
with multiberries (cloudberries), and through this run streaks
of bare rounded rock, on one of which is the path.
" In the soft earth I tracked an English shoe, and presently
saw two men going the wrong way, about a quarter of a mile
ahead. I hailed them, put them right, and we joined com-
])any. We visited the foss, and together returned to Eide.
(The foss and its mark are described, p. 90.)
Sondhord is near \]\o Avatershed of Southern Norway,
and glaciers are seen at the head of the glen.
A day's walk leads to a glen, whose waters pass Kongsberg
LAND-ICE—XOltWAY—LOCAL SYSTEM. 215
and run south to the Skaocrrack. A renniant of the ice-engine
is at this centre ; another little bit of it is left at Bondhuus
(p. 209) ; and at the mouth of the Hardanger Fjord are some
of the tool-marks of old Scandinavian ice. It was launched
for Scotland, and it shaped the Scandinavian rocks which
are figured in the woodcut below, for the rocks are stratified,
and the ice-ruts can be traced from Srindhord down to tlie sea.
o/ rock, -utth drift terracesfoi'mmj; in 7cater,
A large rock-groove U luilffilled with sea-iuater ; a high ridge D zvhich divides two branches
of the fjords; at thefork V is a tor '--. The river-mark in the foreground is insig-
nificant.
Fio. 43. A Shokt Branch and Part of the Maik Hardanger Fjord, sear Bondhlts.
From a point about ]000 feet above the sea, looking N.W. to a ro(;k.v point where tlie
main glacier, whicli hegiin iibout Sondhonl, joined this branch.
CHAPTER XVII.
DENUDATION U—FROST-MAKKS 7—LAND-ICE G—OLD LOCAL
SYSTEM—WESTERN SCANDINAVIA.
These twu local ice-systems })laced far suutli, aiul opposite
to Scotland, M'itli tlieir old marks beside tliem, are good
samples of Scaiidinaviau glacial denudation, and they are
easily visited. With the lesson taught by Fj.erland fresh in
the mind, each Norwegian fjord is found to contain like
marks. .
If the Sogne and Hardanger Fjords contained big
glaciers, the snow-heaps which fed them must have been
large in proportion, according to fair induction ; and in fact,
everywhere in Southern Norway, the tracks of a large local
system do appear. The land is low at the col between
Eomsdal and Gulbrandsdal ; and these two glens cut the
south-western ])oint of Norway from the main block of high
land which forms the peninsula. Rivers which part at this
col run west to Molde, and south to Sarpsborg, below Chris-
tiania. If there be any truth in ice-marks, two vast glaciers,
or two sets of icebergs, followed the run of these two rivers,
and one of the streams now drains a large tract of Eastern
Norway.
From the high western blo(;k of land, glaciers flowed
every way, diverging as rivers now diverge. Where Chris-
tiansand stands, at the mouth of Saitarsdal, a stream of ice
enterel the Skagarrack. Sivtarsdal, as its name im])lies, is the
mountain pastureduud of the low country.
WESTERN SCANDINAVIA—OLJ> LOCAL SYSTK.NL :.' 1 7
ill the autuiuii, tlie cattle are dnveii doM-ii in great
droves.
" At the month of the glen, I walked down with the I'ro-
eurator of the district to see what he called a ' drift.' 1
thought it was a raft, and was surprised to find some forty
cows and a couple of hundred sheep and goats waiting to he
ferried over a broad river. They Mere driven down to a
sandy point, with logs stranded upon it, and a wooded hillock
rising behind. There they stood, huddled together, bleating
and lowing, and switching their tails in the calm water. The
goats perched themselves on the logs, and men .stood amongst
them ; while a flat feny-boat, with a load of ' smaa creatur,'*
was slowly rowing from the land. It was calm, and the
hills had now begun to be worth looking at ; the light was
good, so the drift made a very pretty picture so far.
" The Procurator had bought a cow, some one else a goat
;
and these two were to remain behind. Boat-load after boat-
load of small cattle were pitched and tossed in, and ferried
over ; and the poor sold goat was left alone bleatmg lament-
ably. Then the cows Avere driven down to the water's edge;
three or f(jur were put into the boat ; and, amidst loud shouts
of ' keesa, keesa,' away went the herd over the still river,
snorting and blowing. Some went up stream, some down;
but all tried to lay their noses on their neighbours' backs, and
the boat had hard work to keep order. One obstinate cow
was hauled over by the horns ; but all landed safe and sound
at last ; and they walked deliberately up the opposite bank,
cropping grass and lowing as if they were used to swimming
two hundred yards."
At another station I met a party of drovers Avith G50 beasts.
They were dressed in native costume. "All clothes in this
* Small cattle— i'.r., .slipcp and goats.
218 DENUDATION—FKOST-MAIiKS—LAND-ICE.
glen liave an upward tendency which it is hard to account
for. In all other countries people have waists, more or less,
short or long : here they have none. INIen fasten the waist-
bands of their trousers round their necks, and put their arms
out of the pockets. Waistcoats are put on like neckcloths,
and the general effect is that of Mr. Nobody, as drawn by
Cruikshank. The women, in like manner, fasten their petti-
coats round their necks ; but they forgot to lengthen them
when the fashion came in, consequently their coats are kilted
like those of Leezy Lindsay in the old song. They wear man}'
different colours, each skirt appearing under its neighbour;
and the whole lot turn up at the edge, so that the outline of a
belle is a concave curve, instead of the usual convex contour."
Sffitarsdal is now a wide pastoral glen ; but every rock in
it is ice-ground for a distance of 112 English miles, as far as
the road extends north.
The upper valley is a miniature copy of one of the Bergen
rock-grooves.
"At Valle, after passing through a wild narrow pass between
bare rocks of great height, the glen widens into a broad green
strath, dotted with stones as big as houses, set in the velvet
turf as if planted there on purpose. The houses are built of
vast logs as big as three modern Norwegian fir trees. Their
corners are carved posts, their roofs project, there are galleries
and carved door-frames, and all about them is old, dark-brown,
and strange."
"At the road-side stood a tall, well-shaped, straiglit-lindjed,
pretty girl, with a plaid thrown over her shoulders, and her
head rolled in a large shawl. Slie wore a jacket about six inches
long, and a waistcoat to match. Sire had sih'er l)reast Inickles,
bits of red worsted embroidery here and there, and several
petticoats of various colours, the longest of which just reached
WESTERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 219
the knee. She had a magnificent pair of garters, witli bright
silver buckles, and as neat a pair of legs as Taglioni, cased in
blue worsted hose. As she stood knitting behind a little fir
tree, she was the very picture of a wild mountain milk-maid.
She vanished like one of her own kids when she found that
she had been seen."
This is said to be the oldest glen in Norway ; the language
is mixed with strange words, some of which sound like Welsh
and Breton. It is said that Scotch colonists were planted
here after a plague had tliinned the natives. Old as this
liuman history is, older ice-marks are perfectly fresh in
Ssetarsdal, and sea-shells yet stick to rocks about the level of
the king's palace at Christiania. But this level would sink
most of the flat land in Southern Norway, and leave bare
rocks above the sea here where bare hills now are.
Christiansand stands upon ice-ground rocks. All the
islands, for miles out to sea, are roches moutonnees, peering
above the waves. " The road leads inland through a wild j)ass,
with hills on either side, with dark pines gTOwing in chinks
in the gray rock. The bottom of this pass is filled mth a
plain of boulders and sand, which look as if ice had dropped
them yesterday." But near this district, as shown above (p.
104), at Sarpsborg, Christiania, and Uddevalla, the sea stood
higher, and these low boulder plains look like ice-chips packed
in water.
A good mountaineer can walk in a few days from Valle,
where waters run south ; to the head of the Hardanger, or to
Bukke Fjord, whose waters run west and south-west.
It is an easy drive from the Hardanger to the Sogne, where
the water runs west ; and a stout walker can march in a day
from ssetars at the head of the Sogne, below the Sgagastol
peaks, east to stetars in Gulbrandsdal, or to other glens which
1>2() DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
run east and suutb, nortli and west. A good road crosses the
Fille Fjeld from another branch of the Sogne Fjord, to
Christiania. It passes the watershed of this district, and
crosses the head waters of many southern rivers. In short,
nearly all the rivers in Southern Norway rise within about
sixty miles of each other.
From this watershed rivers of water or ice must have
dowed ever since the highest peak was above water.
Where glens meet, there ice-marks part. Though snow
melts on the fjeld in summer now. Southern Norway certainly
was the base of one big local ice-system, which helped to
carve out tlie star of glens and fjords through wliicli rain-
water now flows to the sea. In these are deep rock-ljasins,
which hold long narrow lakes, and salt lochs. When the
glaciers were launched, the slips were set for Denmark, and
for Great Britain : and the German Ocean must have been
full of Scandinavian icebergs, loaded with boulders quarried
about the Fille Fjeld.
A glance at a good map will sliow that all the draiuage
of this wide tract of high land pours into a sea, which is
bounded on the west by the British Isles.
A local ice-system, with its centre on the liigliest land,
and its river-glaciers in every glen, would spread from tlie
Fille Fjeld and Sgagastol (p. 139), Ijecause rivers do now. The
eastern drainage is cauglit in Gulbrandsdal, and runs past
Christiania into the Skagarrack.
Westwards and northwards, water is cauglit in the grooves
which open towards Shetland and Eastern Scotland. South-
wards, rivers enter the basin of the North Sea, and they all
How in ice-ground glens. Tlie area drained in this direction
is about ('(pial to the liritish Isles.
I'.ul Ihcsc waters arc joiued bv all the dniiuaw of Sweden
WESTERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 221
and Finland, whose rivers enter the Ijaltic, and thercl)y enter
the German Ocean.
Following the southern coast-road from Christiania, every
glen, hill, fjord, and island, bears marks of ice moving sea-
ward. The marks are not confined to glens ; on the coast-
road from Christiansand to Stavanger it is the same. " There
are no glaciers, bnt the whole conntry looks as if it had jnst
Ijegnn to change from bare rock to vegetation. In some dis-
tricts rocks are mostly granite ; in others they are .slaty" (gneiss
and slate). "The hills are all rounded at the top, and ice-
polished. The glens run about north and south ; and in
many places their sides are nearly precipitous ; l)ut on
every flat ledge, and in every crack, there gro^\•s a Ijuncli of
trees, with fern, heather, blaeberries and raspberries at their
roots."
" In every l)it of flat land there is a corn-field ; and on
August 6th, 1857, the harvest had begun. Rut the main
features in the landscapes are gray rock and blue water
—
ice-marks and melted ice.
" The present state of this land is a strange contrast to the
scene which the ice-marks conjure up. From the utter solitudes
and desolation of the ice-world which is at Justedal, and was
on hills above Christiansand, the present appears like a
magical change. From ice, reindeer, elk, and bears, we get
down to a smiling land.
" In the evening light this countiy is very lieautifnl. After
a long day, after scramljling up a long weary hill, in a vehicle
like a small blue boat upon yellow wheels, we came to a
1>row. At our feet was a lake stretching away for miles and
miles ; islands, and points, and ranges of hills beyond, were
reflected in the bright shining water, and everything was rosy
and oolden in the sunlight. Dark firs on each side made the
222 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
distance look all the l)rigliter. It was a quiet, solitary, warm,
beautiful landscape.
" I got out, and sat down hj the road-side to sketch, while
the horse and the boy went on, and grazed contentedly on grass
and raspberries. When they were gone, I might have been in
the backwoods of North America, for all I could see of human-
kind. Tlie air was cabn ; beautiful butterflies— summer-
fowl, as they call them in Norway ; strange little birds, that
I had never seen before, flitted about ; and the great black
Avoodpecker yelled in the forest. I had a gun, but I let them
live on, and enjoy themselves as I was doing."
In every bit of flat land (that is to say, nearly in every
glen), there is cultivation.
The Lyndals river flows through a wide open strath, with
fine green velvet turf, moorland, and birch trees, where there is
no corn. " The trees and the peat-reek smelt so sweet in the
warm rain, and the place looked so like old Scotland, and mysecond love Lapland, that I halted to try for a fish. Pulled
uji at the station, and got the old master to lend me a fresh
horse, and go with me to the highest pool. We had no right
to fish, but nevertheless we poached together in the rain till
dark. Hooked one small grilse, but lost him."
The low country in Southern Norway is very like a
Highland glen. The glens are rock-grooves ; the plains drift
;
and the rivers are only sorting ice-chips in ice-grooves. After
Flekke Fjord, the hills recede from the coast, and the Stav-
anger road is flat and uninteresting.
Here is a sea view of the country :
—
" Sept. 11th, 1857.—At Stavanger we stopped for the night.
I landed at sunset and walked up to the cathedral, and to a
windmill, from which there is a fine view over a perfect laby-
rinth of low rocky islets, and to the distant mountains about
WESTERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 223
Bukke Fjord. The town in the foregroimd, witli the ships'
masts and the watch-tower rising against the gray eastern
sky, made a very pretty picture. The cathedral is Gothic,
built of stone, and dilapidated. There is nothing very re-
markable about it, but that it is 900 years old, and one of the
two stone cathedrals of Norway.
" \Vlien we went on board again it was dead calm. The
moon was peeping out from behind some dark clouds close to
the old watch-tower ; stars were twinkling here and there;
lights were glimmering from the windows on both sides of the
narrow harbour, and every light was doubled by the calm
dark sea. Every boat that shot out to our steamer left a
trail of sparks that glittered in the water like diamonds,
glowed, and died awa}-.
" Presently a fine deep voice, high above us, began to
chaunt the hour, and a psalm, from the watch-tower ; and
then from all parts of the town, at different distances, the
watchmen chaunted the response. It made a beautiful scene,
this sleeping town ; and the voice of its guardians was a grand
solemn chorus rising on the still night-air. Stayed on deck
gazing, listening, dreaming, and wliistling old times, till near
midnight, and then tm-ued in.
" Sept. 12th.—Awoke nearly suffocated ; the steward had
shut my port-hole, and there was not a chink m the ship ojjen
for ventilation. Got air as soon as possible, and found that
we were steaming south-east along a low flat coast, with dis-
tant mountains showing beyond a plain. The road runs along
this flat, which is said to be without interest. It is like the
Campagna of Eome \\ithout the ruins. The distant lulls are
quite as fine as the Italian mountains, and the foreground
quite as flat and ugly.
" The coast is a wild one. It was a fine morning, but
224 DENUDATION—FKOST-M AliKS—LAND-KK.
there was a little sea on, and tuwards noon it clouded over,
and l)lew from the soiith. We called at Eggersiind and Flekkc
Fjord, and ran for the night into Farsnnd.
" The scenery in this part of Norway is very peculiar, and
differs entirely from the northern coast. About the Arctic
Circle hills are jagged peaks. Seen from a distance these
hills appear to slope down gradually to the sea, with a rough
rounded outline. There are few peaks to notice ; Lut when
the ship comes near the coast, there are intricate passages and
long fjords winding in and out amongst the hills in the most
extraordinary fashion. Farsund is one of tliese rpieer land-
locked holes. We were tossing about in the open sea off
Lyster at six, when the pilot on the bridge held up his hand,
and we charged stem on right into a nest of breakers antl
black rocks. (Many of these rocks are of the pattern of the
Devonshire tors.) We turned and twisted, and wound our
way amongst these, passing within ten yards of the stones.
Then we twirled round' a rocky point, and steamed at a hill.
At last we twisted sharp round another rock, got behind the
hill, or through it, and found ourselves in a rock pool,
where we ancliored witliiu twenty yards of ;i llourisliing little
red wooden town. It is built upon ]ierfeetly bare rocks, with
hardly a blade of grass in sight."
Here is another coast view of this part of the world :
—
After a rough voyage from Hull, we made the Na^s, and
coasted along to Christiania.
" Tucsdai/, June lOih, 1851.—The wind veered round to
the north in the night, and at the Na'S, which we reached
early, the tossing was worsc^. than ever. J5y breakfast time
we had shot round, and by tluitinie we wen^ off Christiansand,
it. was nearly calm. Here we landed a passenger by putting
him and his goods into a very pretty pilot-boat with brown sails.
WESTERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 225
" The coast was in siglit all clay, a rough rocky fore-
ground, backed by forests, and far away a snow-peak or two
glittering in the sun, which shone out warm and bright.
The sick passengers came crawling out of their dens, looking
wo-begone, but on the way to recovery. A youth with a
Glengary bonnet and a Lochawe-side terrier began to shout
for whisky ; and in a short time the crew were all alive, steam-
ing up Christiania Fjord.
" The evening effects were very beautiful. Great masses
of white cloud went rolling up the dark hills from the coast,
with dark blue showers falling from their ragged edges, while
numberless white sails were dotted about in all directions.
" Ships of all rigs were working down the Skagerrak, l;ug-
ging the Norwegian shore to gain the tide, which there runs
south-westward at a considerable rate.
" At the mouth of the fjord a custom-house officer came
on board, looked at our papers, and departed. He was a big
heavy man, and when he got into his cockleshell of a boat, he
looked as if he were sitting on the water." Got into Chris-
tiania at 1 A.M, on the 11th, having made the run of about
six hundred miles in seventy-two hours.
So if there were ice-floats in the Skagerrak they would
move along the coast south-westwards ; if these carried
stone cargoes they would be shipped for the coast from which
we had sailed.
From Christiania we went to Bergen, falling in with a
large party of students at Krokleven, which we reached as
the sun was setting. "Here the main body of horses, car-
riages, and drivers were assembled. A regular army of
Norwegian ponies were tethered in rows in the open air,
while their owners chattered and smoked and drank beer
about the little inn. Lots of pedestrian students were
Q
22G DENUDATION—FKOST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
lounging aliout the door, and the place was a Babel of
tongues. We walked down to look at the Queen's View.
It was magnificent : lake, forest, mountain, and river
stretched away to the liorizon, a distance of about seventy
miles, and a warm twilight western sky showed the distant
peaks as clearly as if they were cut against it. A wild deep
gorge was in front, and far below us were the station at
Sundvolden, and the quiet lake, with a pigmy boat stealing
silently over the glassy surface. Near it were some white
tents with long tables laid for to-morrow's In-eakfast, and far
away, gleaming against a dark hill, a large watch-lire blazed
where the main body of Swedish students were now supping."
.At this season the high watershed is a contrast to the low
coast-line. The glacial period is hovering over it, with white
snow-wings, ready to pounce with ice-claws on the old perch.
" Jwie 1-itli.—In these high glens, with the snow just off the
ground, there is no jiroper food for the half-starved wretched
horses. They are sorry cattle at this time of year.
" Drove on ; up the Fille Fjeld to ISTystuen, and got in l)y
eight. For the last part of the way the road was still covered
with old snow-drifts, two or three feet deep. Lemens were
running about in all directions, and the way-side was strewed
with the carcases of the slain. By tlie station was a frozen
lake of winter snow and ice, with a patch of clear water here
and th{>re, and tracks of skulges still ck'ai" on tlu^ melting sur-
face, whicli here makes the winter road. The wind ^\-as
piercing cold, so I was glad to get indoors, dine on reindeer
venison and potatoes, and toast my inimbed hands.
"in^/i.—Up at 7; very fine. AValked up to tlie t()]i of
a higli ])r('('i[)i(ous hill lo see the view. AVc^ walked up in an
hour, and it, was a good still' ])ull. The first part ol" the way
was over grassy land with rocks [)('('])ing through, and small
WESTERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 227
thickets of willow. It slioiilcl be a grand place for reiper.
Patches of snow lay on the ground all the way, b\it on the top
it was everywhere very deep. The sun had melted the surface
crust, so we sank in three or four feet in the drifts. The
lemens were in scores. They kept running about on the
snow, and taking refuge under it when Bob or his master
chanced to come near them. Every now and then there was
a grand chivey. A little l)rown yellow beast appeared at a
distance, and off went Bob in hot pursuit, kicking up the
snow and barking with keenness. The lemens always fled at
first, but when overtaken they turned and sat up on their
short tails, chattering and spitting, and showing desperate
fight. The battles always ended in a crunch from Bob's jaws,
and twenty lemens died. As for Bob, his travels nearly ended
here, for a large eagle, which had been soaring above us,
suddenly stooped at the dog who was coursing a lemen in hot
haste. The bird passed within a few yards of my comrade,
Bob's master, with beak and claws down ; but he missed, and
rose again, and hung above us wheeling as before.
" The view was fine and very extensive ; to the south was
Solens Tinde, the highest point on this range. It was a snowy
peak rising from a wide snowy plateau, through which a few
rocks were only now beginning to show their backs. To the
north were the Horurgerne and Jotun Fjelds, a sea of wild
peaks and jagged cliffs like the teeth of a saw (see p. 139, Fig.
31). To the east was the glen up which we had come, with
a few snow-hills showing in the extreme distance. To the
west was a confused mass of snow, lakes, and rocks, amongst
which the telescope made out the reindeer which belong to
the inn. Our guide told us that an Englishman had bought
seven or eight last year. Came to the conclusion that they
now inhabit the Zoological Gardens, and said I had seen them.
228 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
The iiiau jtskt^l tenderly after their liealth and pitied them,
' poor things withoiit any snoAv.'
" We sat on the top a full lionr basking. Tliis is a snow
>vorld, and a wonderful change in one week from the smoke
and dust and heat of London." By autumn this tract is
almost clear of snow. The glaciers are further west beyond
the jagged mountains ; but the pLateau of the Fille Fjeld is
as high as the Folge Fond, and further inland.
One is a picture of utter desolation ; the other picture
was pleasant to look upon, for the annual glacial period was
taking flight.
" Our Sunday dinner was duck and potatoes. The girls
were busy at their toilette by the lake-side. They let down
masses of magnificent hair, that streamed all about them
below their waists. They combed it, and washed it carefully
;
and rolled it up with red tape bands, and twisted the rope
round their heads. Our boy sat on a stone beside them,
laughing and chatting, and splashing their faces. The old
landlady, with her queer wliite two-horned Sunday cap, sat at
the door reading a big Norsk Bible, and peering out over her
spectacles at the boys and girls. She, too, enjoyed the warm
sunsliine ; and we agreed that Nystuen was a pleasant place
for a Sunday halt, on a fine June day."
One stage further on, the road dives into a glen which
is ice-ground from end to end ; and grooves at the top point
for the mouth of the Sogne Fjord and Shetland.
" The glen from ]\Iariestuen to Hteg is magnificent. The
road winds along beside a rapid little stream, growing bigger
at every turn. In some places it is rather dangerous driving.
At Hseg all the world were at home ; so I produced a black
convex mirror, and had the whole household about me in a
minute. The*e were about two dozen of all ages—some pretty.
WESTERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 221)
and all very picturesque—climbing over the stairs, and peep-
ing over each other's shoulders, and scraniljling for a peep at
their own delighted faces. Married women wore a white cap
with two peaks like horns;
girls had their hair bound up in
red tape, and twisted round their heads like a turl)au. They
wore jackets with full sleeves, short full petticoats, and
stockings of all colours. Shirts, shoes, and fingers, glittered
with studs, buckles, and filagree rings of silver."
And so down to Ljusue.
" The glen is one of the wildest I ever saw ; the road
extraordinary. At times it passes imder enormous over-
hanging stones, all waterworn, as if the river had flowed far
higher up ; at others, it crosses the stream on shaky wooden
bridges ; then, to avoid some cliff, it winds up hill, mean-
dering about amongst large fallen stones. At one of these
places I sat in my carriole and dropped a stone over the edge
about three hundred feet (as I guessed) down into the river.
The people, as I have often remarked in other countries, are
far less healthy at the foot of the glen than they are high up
amongst the hills."
And so the road and the journal lead down to La?rdalsoren,
on the Sogne Fjord, close to the glacier district above
described (chaps, xiv. xv.)
The fjord was once filled with ice. It is noiv a sea-loch,
and the way to Bergen lies by a water-stage.
"Monday, June IGth.—Got under weigh at 11. Our
boat was a large one, with a l)ig square sail. Our two
carrioles were hoisted up, one in the bow, with the shafts
sticking out like a brace of bowsprits ; the other at the stern,
with the shafts the other way. We had a crew of five ; and,
at the last moment, a passenger asked leave to jiiin. AVe
were eight men, two carriages, and Bob ; and our boat was
230 DENUDATION—FllOST-lSIAKKS—LAND-ICE.
Avitliin six inches of the water. It had come on to blow very
hard, and lots of natives came to see the start. Everybody
chattered as we went off, and advice flew after us as long as
we were within earshot. The squalls were fearful. When they
came whistling down the glen and fell upon the water, the
spindrift flew like mist, and our boat whizzed and sang
through the boil. AVaves curled up behind us, and broke
close to the stern-post. Three irien sat together on the after
thwart, two to haul down the sail, and one to hoist and steer
;
and they, as well as the passengers and the two who sat for-
ward, were chewing hard. When the squalls came, they all
rolled their quids, and chewed harder ; and grinned and chat-
tered like a flock of gulls in a gale.
" Down came the tall sail in a moment ; and, when the
worst was over, up it went, with more chattering : and then
we spun over the crisp blue fjord till the next blast fell off
the hills. With our top hamper and very little ballast, it was
more exciting than safe.
" By the time we had reached the mouth of the Gud-
vangen Fjord it had fallen dead calm, and the sun shone
brightly. This is the wildest bit of scenery I have ever seen.
The mountains are almost perpendicular ; in many places they
are cliffs. Here and there a salmon-flshery overhangs the
water. A large flat net is hung from fir booms, and a man
perched on a high stage sits like a spider in his web, holding
strings ready to haul when anytliing passes. Dotted about
on green spots at the foot of the cliffs, are tiny little wooden
cottages, like toy boxes. As we passed them, rowing steadily
over the smooth glassy water, Ave could see cows gathering in
from birch woods, which cling in every chink and cranny;
they came tinkling their bells, as they sh(jok the flies from
their ears, and whisked their tails.
WESTERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 231
" Thruslies were singing sweetly, and cuckoos were sounding
their notes high up amongst the rocks. At one i)hxce a girl,
di-essed iu the costume of Bergen, stood upon the top of a great
stone, and called her flock about her with tliat wild plaintive
tone wliich seems to belong to all mountaineers. AU the
way up, wherever there was grass and footing, white goats
clambered about, and stared at us as we passed beneath them
on the black deep water. They rattled down loose stones,
which plunged into the water beside us. At every fresh turn,
waterfalls seemed to come from the clouds, for there was no
liigher ground in sight. Some feU direct into the sea from a
cliff. One above the inn is said to be 2000 feet high."
From the end of this branch, the road passes over a high
ridge, and down through other fjords to Bergen. Thence
steamers run to Stavanger and INIolde, through land-locked
sounds, amongst scenery which rivals the finest in Switzerland.
Once for all, the whole country is ice-gromid, except where
weather, rivers, and waves have obliterated the marks. The
glacial period has been lifted, but it hangs in the air like a tent
of cloud. From the FiUe Fjeld, Hardanger, and Hormigerne,
from the watershed down to Bergen on one side ; to Gulbrands-
dal and Christiania, Eomsdal and Molde on the other ; from
Christiania round the coast to jMolde again, there are tracks
of one local glacier system. It spread from Gidbrandsdal to
the Atlantic ; from Eomsdal near lat. 63° N. to Lmdesmes, lat.
58° N. It covered an oval patch on the globe about the shape
of Ireland and the size of England, which corresponds to the
latitudes of the Faro Islands, Orkney and Shetland, and
Scotland to the Moray Firtli.
The points about wliich the eUipse can be drawn on the
map are the Hardanger and Horungerne, the highest mouu-
tauis at the head of the largest fjords in Southern Norway.
I|l?l?l Hill! ^"^"^silflSI i £
I'airy'sfunh
Open xea of A i
iCttnuedu CItiU
Chap. 24
E. Oreenlanl \
A rdincapU I ih t
/ ^^
CHAPTER XVIII.
DENUDATION 10—FKOST-MARKS 8—LAND-IGE 7—OLD LOCAL
SYSTEM 2—SOUTIIEliN SCANDINAVLV.
If Western Norway, opposite to the Faro Isles, and to
Northern Scotland as far south as Inverness, now contains
local glacier systems, and was formerly covered l)y one large
local system, which still hovers over it ; then the higli ridge
of land which forms the Scandinavian peninsula, and extends
from the North Cape to Lindesnies, ought to have heen
covered at the same time.
If there is a star of ice-marks on the oval block which
forms Southern Norway, there ought to be a herring-bone
pattern on the long ridge which stretches north-east and south-
west between 58° and 71° 10' N. lat. To travel round this
block, and cross it at various ])oints, is to be convinced tliat
the backbone of Scandinavia, like the ridge of a house in
winter, once sent off snow-slides to the Gulf of Bothnia and
to the Atlantic through every hollow.
Take the next block of the peninsula.
About lat. 64° the country is traversed by a road which
leads from Trondhjem to Sundsvall. It is the last of its
kind, and the most northern pass in the world.
The col is about 2000 feet high at most. If a line is
drawn from this pass to Sundsvall, and south about Sweden
to Christiania ; up Gulbrandsdal, down Eomsdal, and round
the coast up to the col once more ; this oval will surround a
234 DENUDATION—FUOST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
tract as large as Great Britain, and siniiliarly placed on a
meridian.
If the sea were up to the level of the northern pass,
where ice-marks point north-east and south-west, in lat.
64°, as shown above (p. lUo) ; and if the submergence were
general in this part of the world, tliere would remain two
groups of islands within the two districts which now form
Southern Scandinavia.
At a level of 1000 feet there would be one long island
stretching from the Wenern See far up into Finnmark, with
the Bergen hills as islands to the west.
It has been shown above (p. 104), that ice-marks about
Gotheborg, and the general features of the low country
which lies below the southern end of this hill country, show
glacial movements from north-east to south-west, and shells
prove that the sea was up to 500 feet at least. But if the
sea were u]) to 500 feet, and the low hills of Southern
Sweden were submerged or awash, the Baltic Current which
now sweeps along the southern coast of Norway (p. 225) wovdd
have room to flow from Gefle m Sweden direct to Lindesnivs.
If, when this low tract was sunk, neighbouring hills were
covered with glaciers, and the North Sea cumbered with ice-
bergs, these would float over Dalecarlia, south-westward,
past Norwegian hills which are seen to the north in passing
through the Gotha Canal.
The watershed of this district would stiU be the highest
ground, which is about the Dovre Fjeld and Iloraas, in
Norway.
The highest mountains are Sneehretten (7500), and the
ramdcne, and they are within sight of each other. A glance
at a good map of Sweden, say Brandenberg's, shows the
watershed from which rivers diverge ; and most of them flow
SOUTIIEKN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 235
from the nuiglibourliood of these moimtains, south-east and
south ; and all these drain into the Skagerrak at last.
The highest mountains about the watershed are weathered
peaks, like those figured above (pp. 137, 139).
Sneehffittan has several sharp pomts, with slopes of talus
and snow-slopes at the base. It stands up from the Ijeld like
a ruined pyramid, and several neighbouring liills have similar
forms.
If tlie sea were up to the base of these hills, tliey would
be copies of islands which stud the coast of Norway.
The Emidene are steep cones like A. The fjeld and all
lower hills have rounded tops ^-^: aU glens are hollow curves
like Highland coiTies ^^-^.
The tract is well known. The main road from Chris-
tiania to Trondhjem passes over the Dovre Ijeld. Forbes
went up SneehoBtten m 1851; Chambers described the road
in 1849. In August 1849, the writer started from Jerkin
in piu'suit of reindeer, with a comrade, whose journals were
printed in 1852. The place is described in Murray's Haml-
look for 1848, Eoute 26, and there still older descriptions
are quoted. Von Buch gives a good description in 1806.
Sueeliretten is a weathered peak with a gxeat corrie at the
foot, which some traveller calls a " crater ;" a careful study of
it with a telescope, and a walk to the foot of the snow, failed
to discover anything but frost-marks on old slaty rocks. At
the foot of the corrie is a hut built by reindeer-hunters for
shelter—it stands on a moraine, and is made of slabs. Of this
place the printed journal says :
—
" It was about 1 o'clock before we started for the
search, and our first beat was up a long tract of low moor to
the foot of Sneeha3tten. At times up to our ankles in mudand water, and obhged to take shelter from tlie moimtain
236 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
showers uuder some large stone. At the foot of Sneeh;etten,
we turned up to the riglit on to higher ground, and came
back over rough stony l)ases of mountains. For eight liours
we had been walking over most impracticable ground, to say
nothing of a fourteen miles' walk in the morning, and all we
had seen was a blue hare and a few tracks. It was not,
however, till we were at the foot uf the ridge on which the
' Smaahuus' stands, some 2(H) feet ahoce the moor, and liad to
climb up it, that I became aware that legs like mine would
refuse the ofhce of carrying their load if urged too far ; in fact
they were fairly tired out."*
The "ridge" is a moraine, like the ridge on the Aai'
glacier, and the corrie is like those figured, pp. 137, 13!),
and like himdreds of corries in the Scotch Highlands. The
burn flows over boulders. The fjeld is about 3000 to 3500
feet al)Ove the sea. Sneeh;ctten rises above it like one of the
peaks of the High Alps seen from a high level, or like one of
the Scotch hills seen from the coast. It is 7714 feet high
according to Murray, and a hill so well known is not worth
a woodcut. Here is a likeness of the neighbourhood from a
manuscript journal.
" August 4th, 1840.—The mist had risen, and the sun
shining on some of the distant peaks promised a fine day;
so we started right up the hills to the west, intending to get the
whid of the glen, and return to our house by four. was
rather pumped at the first hill ; and indeed it was a stiff one;
but he is very plucky, and would not give in. We waited
for him two or three times, and took a good hour to reach
the top. There we were forced to go slower, for to lose each
other would not do in such a mist as we entered. I have
* Notes iVoiii u Trasvllri''s Journal. (1. Woo.Uall and Son, London, 1852.
Printed for piivatu ciriulaliou.
SOUTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 237
seldom seen a denser cloiid ; and when we got on the snow
and looked round, it seemed like walking in air, for notliing
was to be seen in any direction. We cursed the mist, and
turned over the shoulder to the head of the glen to the west,
hoping that the mist might be higher on that side. On the
way we fell in with the tracks of two deer quite fresh, and
following them, we descended till we left the clouds, and
then sat down to spy the corrie. ISTothing appeared, so we
crossed and mounted the opposite face. Here began to
flag, and on coming up he took advice, and went back down
the glen alone." (This glen joins the one which comes from
the foot of Sneehtetten, and like it is a wide roimded groove
very much ice-gTound. A lake is at the lower end, and the
rocks about it are so polished as to be almost impassable.)
" Ion Eriksen and I, having devoured our respective lun-
cheons, went on to the top of the ridge, and the sun being
now very bright and warm, we could see famously for manymiles. Nothing was visible but peaks, and snow, and rein-
deer moss, and three small snow-birds that whistled and
chii-ped and fluttered about in the sunlight, merry as crickets,
I sat and watched them lazily for some minutes, and then
gave it up as a bad job, and took the way to Jerkin, Wehad a long snow-slope to descend right towards the sun,
and in front of us rose a mass of broken stones and rocks
in deep shadow. Here it would have puzzled a lynx to
see a haystack ; and here, of course, were the only deer wefound. We, on the snow, must have loomed large and black as
elephants. So the ' ren'—a hind and calf—set off, and we first
saw them haK a mile away, racing over the snow towards
the moimtains which we had left in the morning. I took a
long look at them through the glass, and shut it with a slap
that savoured of an execration. The old one had small horns
238 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
just sprouting ; she ran fast, with an action of mucli power
but little grace, and she smelt at the snow now and then as
if in search of foes. Siie was certainly not so pretty as a
red-deer, but I should have liked well to have a shot at lier
despite of her sex and her family.
"We now got into a deep picturesque gorge with a l^eautiful
sheet of clear green water at the bottom. We followed it to
within about two miles of our late lodgings—the hut ; saw
with the glass, packing ; and then walked down to
Ch'onl)akken, and u}) the hill back to Jta-kin. The old L^dy
came to my room and slapped my bare legs, which had turned
red from sun and mosquitoes ; then holding up her hands the
worthy woman departed, exclaiming, ' Gud bevare, til gaa so
barbenet !' The benighted mortals had never seen a kilt."
In 1852, in June and August, the writer crossed and
recrossed the Dovre Fjeld. In Septend^er 1851 he travelled
from Trondhjem round the coast to Mokle, and up Eomsdal,
where he spent two days upon the watershed to the west of
SneeliJietten, returning thence by Gulbrandsdal to Christiania.
Before the glacial theory had grown to its present shape,
tlie strange appearance of this fjeld had been noticed.
Mr. Laing says, " The most extraordinary feature of this
mountain tract, and the grandest in reflection, is that the
surface of the Fell and of Sneehoitten to its summit is covered
witli, or more properly is composed of, roimded masses of
gneiss and granite, from the size of a man's head to that of the
hull of a ship. These loose rolled masses are covered with
soil in some places ; in others they are hnvG, just as they were
left hy the torrent, which must have rounded them and deposited
them in this region"*
This is a true picture of the fjeld, so far as it has been
* Journal of a Residence in Noi-vmij, by Samuel T.aiiig, Loiul. 1836, page 53.
SOUTHEKN SCANDINAVIA— OI,D LOCAL SYSTLNL 239
exjilored. Witli the top of Sneehatteu acquaintance has not
yet ])een made.
With a glacial theory forming or formed, no one can see
this coimtry without recognising the tool-marks of ice.
Starting from one set of corries at the foot of Sneeha?tten,
one connected series of ice-marks can be followed down to the
mouth of the Smidalls Fjord, which the coast road crosses in
lat. 65° K, at a point a hundred miles from tlie snowslied.
Starting from the soiithern corries, a set of marks lead down
to a low watershed, whence two large rivers part ; one flows
west to Eomsdal, the other south through Gulbrandsdal to
the Christiania Fjord, and these two used to flow out of the
same lake in Eomsdal. (It is drained now—1864)
The Eomsdal Fjord is one of the finest in Xorway. TIio
view from Molde alone is worth the journey.
At Veblung Nres the fjord ends, and the glen begins. To
the north are a series of weathered peoks, broken beds of rock,
which dip about north away from the famous Eomsdals-
horn. It is an obelisk of granite about 4000 feet high, and
the snow which slides off it falls sheer down into the valley.
The only adventurous traveller who lias tried to scale the
horn went on till a ledge of rock ran to notliing. He wrote
"an account of his adventure, and tore it up ; Ijut lie made a
lot of photographs in this glen, which remain. From below,
the main difficidty seems to be the smoothness of the steep
rock on the only practical^le side. Where snow cannot rest,
the foot of man is apt to slide, as all climbers know.
On the south side of the glen are a set of slaty cliffs,
which dip south, away from the horn. These are several
thousand feet high, and they are weathered into the most
fantastic peaks. One point is called " INIartin Luther," the row
are called "Troll Tinderne" (witch peaks), and "Brude Folje"
240 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
(the bride's following). The glen is a great fault, with an
anteclinal axis, and an ni)throw of granite in the crack. But
since the world's crust was bent and broken, the glen has
been full of ice.
The breadth from cliff to cliff may be about two miles;
the space between is filled with a series of flat steps, which
are made of sand and boulders. Many of these are of enor-
mous size.
In some places big stones are piled in mounds and ridges,
amongst which firs, birches, willow, and alders grow.
The bottom of the rift is filled with stranded ice-chips.
Looking down the valley, the course of the ice is markeil
so clearly, that it is impossible to misunderstand the record.
Where the stream ran against the bank in a bay, the cliffs
are deeply scored to a height of about 1000 feet ; where the
ice turned sharp round the foot of the horn, the marks are
fresh. Talus-heaps which have crumbled from weathered peaks
above, and a small drain washed through boulder-heaps
below, are the marks made by weathering and rivers ; and
they are insignificant beside these ice-marks, though the
Eoma is a splendid salmon stream.
The only place in the British Isles which can be likened
to Eomsdal, is Loch Corrieuisge in Skye, and it is but a
small copy of this wild gorge. From a small lake close to
Fokstuen, which is about 3000 feet above the present sea-
level, a stream runs to the Glommen, passes Kongs Vinger, and
enters the Skagerrak. It is joined by a stream, which starts
from a lake near Koraas, and from hiUs near Eoraas water
rims to Elfdal, to Hudiksvalla, to Gefle, and to Trollhattan.
From Tann Foss (p. 101) to Elfdal a cross road skirts the
western side of the block of high land from "\\liich all these
great rivers diverge.
SOUTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 2-41
In September 1850 the writer drove alonp; tliis line sketch-
ing and scribbling to keep himself company. The country is
all of one pattern, the patterns described above (p. 102). The
only place in the British Isles that has ever called up a vision
of this district is the pass between Lough Conn and Lough
Cullen in Ireland.
The people are worth going to see.
" SejJtemher 22d, 1850.—Meant to have stopped all day
(at Finstuga), but therewas nothing to eat but potatoes and cold
water, so drove on. My first boy was dressed in full Dahl
costume, and was a good-looking good-humoured fellow.
Like the rest of his countrymen he sings as he talks, and he
is a regular Swedish Scotchman. At the first station all the
people were asleep ; they yawned fearfully, and had a dram
all round before they would move for horses. Dined at Arvet.
All the people in full Sunday fig, and splendid fellows they
were. There were clean-limbed, well-made men, and pretty
women with the true Dahl singing voice, which is music to
my ear. They stared at me as if I had been a wild beast.
The men wear blue stockings and jackets, with leather
breeches and square-cut waistcoats. Some had the everlast-
ing leather apron, but some were without it. One pretty
little woman had a large leathern knapsack on her back,
which, as I supposed, was filled with something to eat.
Presently she turned her head and addressed the contents
with 'Er du waukin du?'
"Down came the bundle, and out of it came a rosy-
cheeked baby with large blue eyes, dressed in full Dahl
costume. In all my wanderings I have never seen a more
picturesque set of people.
" The Gastgiver was drunk as an owl, so passed myself off
as a travelling tailor from Scotland. No one had ever heard
R
242 1 )ENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
of the place, and some one asked if it did not belong to
Danemark.
" Drove one stage more to Skattungebyn, because it was
' a poor place in the mountains,' and I guessed that the folk
would l)e worth studying. Made a good hit for once.
" Two carriages now joined me filled with swells who had
l)een to a wedding ; and when our cavalcade drove in to the
town, the whole parish, in full fig, had gathered to see us.
One of the party was the parson of jNIora, and they had come
to see him.
" It was worth a journey to S^\•eden only to see that
gathering. The old fellows with their clean white breeches
and their yellow aprons crowded about us : their long hair
and red caps, blue stockings and birch-bark shoes, were
perfect : very pretty fair blue-eyed girls and bright-eyed
boys, each a picture, climbed up the railings and peered over
the heads of the old men ; and the landlord, himself a study,
trotted about with his merry face, shaking hands with every
body in turn, and talking the most incomprehensible oi'
Dahlska. The priest told me that it was very rare for a
traveller to come that road at all.
" The swells being gone, I ordered some porridge, and took
possession of the room, intending to Ijc quiet, b;it I had
reckoned without my host. First one old picture, and then
another, wall^ed in, and after saluting me, gravely seated
itself ; and so they filled the room, to my delight.
"We were soon as tliick as thieves, and I had to answer
a string of questions.
" Were we Christians in England ? 1 lad we schools ? Had
W(! ]5il)lcs?
" For answer I produced mine, and for many minutes there
were loud exclamati(jns of wonder at the beauty of the book.
SOUTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 243
and the unintelligible language. Then we had to read a bit
to hear what it was like, and then an old fellow read the
same bit in Swedish to compare the two. Next they set to
play on a queer square instrument with one string which lay
on the table, but as no one was good at it a girl was sum-
moned. She was neat and trim as a Sunday maiden could
be, fresh and rosy ; lier jacket was of sheepskin, beautifully
dressed, with fringes of white curly ^^'Ool round the wrists and
skirt ; her petticoat was blue, and like a crimped collar ; her
stockings were red, and her shoes of the true Dahl pattern
—
the upper leather embroidered, and with a large flap like
a Highland brogue ; the sole of birch bark, two inches thick,
with a small square peg in the middle of the foot instead of a
heel. With her psalmodicon on a rough deal table, with a
single candle shining on her earnest face, with old long-haired
wrinkled faces and twinkling eyes all about her, and a back-
ground of brown wood, she looked like a Dutch picture comn
to life. The lassie had a sweet voice and sang well.
"At last my party broke up, and wishing me a liearty
good-night all round, they thanked me for my ' agreealjle
company' with great politeness, and left me to repose in
sheepskin sheets.
" 24^7i.—Drove to Garlung and Elfdal, the famous porphyry
work. The people at the work have been making a sarco-
phagus for Karl Johan for six years, and they have a year's
work before them. It is a magnificent thing, and gives some
idea of Egyptian works. When a plain sarcophagus keeps
ten men, with three storeys of machinery, and a big water-
wheel, polishing for seven years ; an obelisk must have taken
a long time to make."
There is no porphyry quarry at this jolace. The stones
are big l)oulders stranded at the base of the hills at the mouth
244 DENUDATION—F1!()ST-MA1!KS—LAND-TOE.
of a glen, which ()])l'Iis on Seljan Like ; and thence to the sea
there is little fall. Sc^a-slu'lls at Uddevalla are nearly as far
above the sea-level as Elfdal, and sea-shells are found seventy
miles inland. After fifteen days of coasting round these hills,
the impression that the sea had been over the plains of
Sweden was confirmed. Looking back from Mora, the rock-
groove which runs up to the watershed, near Svuku Fjeld, is
seen to be lined with flat-topped terraced slopes ; and these
are made of sand and boulders, through which some engine
has scooped out a ^^'ay which the river follows.
The old Swedish king's bones now rest in a wandering
block, which ice quarried and carried to Elfdal, to lie polished
by men. But where is the quarry ?
Porphyry is found in situ near Elfdal, but it is also found
elsewhere in Sweden.
What say the ice-marks ? From Oregrund to Upsala,
Chambers found ice-marks running N. and S. by compass;
that is to say, he found tracks of ice moving down the Baltic
coast. Between Upsala and Stockholm the coast-marks run
N.N.E., S.S.W.
From Stockholm to Gotheborg, the highest level is only
oO? feet above the sea, and shells are near the w^atershed.
At p]knffis striae point S.W.
All along the road from Gotheborg to Frederikstadt striae
point N.E. and S.W.* In short, the striir for a great dis-
tance point from the IJaltic basin over Sweden at England.
Working north, ( Julbrandsdal is terraced to a level, wliicli
is liigher than the col which divides it from IJomsdal. Boms-
dal is terraced also. These strange contour lines may be
followed round the coast to Trondhjem, and every fjord has
remnants of " ])arallel roads" and " terraces of erosion,"
* Cliiinilirfs' Rdinhurfjh JouriKil, vol. xiii., Ni^w Scries.
SOUTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 245
wliicli mark various sea-levels up to the foot of the pass on
the top of which ice-marks at 2000 feet point N.E. and
S.W. in lat. 64°; as they do at the other end of the ridge in
lat. 59° in the country near Gotheborg.
In low lands, as at the mouth of Sietarsdal (p. 219), clay
and boulders are everywhere packed in rock basins, and on
hill-sides, in the form of banks, terraces, and wide plains,
through which hog-backed rocks rise up all scored and
weathered, but ground into shape by some engine.
There are few moraines with conical heaps low down. If
a curved rampart crosses a glen at a low level, mounds in it
are rounded domes like the forms shown, p. 177, Fig. 34, not
sharp cones, whose sides make an angle of 32° with the
horizon (p. 181). In the Gulf of Bothnia thousands of dome-
shaped heaps of boulders rise in the sea, as circular islands
clad with fir-trees. On shore, in the plains of Sweden, similar
heaps and long ridges of gravel and stones would be islands
and points, if the sea were over the plains of drift in which
they stand. At sea and on shore ice-ground rocks peer alcove
water and rise aniongst waving corn, with large stones balanc-
ing on their backs.
The parallel roads of Glenroy have given occasion to
much controversy ; the terraces of Scandinavia surround
the wliole peninsula, and these mark a sea-level high enough
to cut South-Western Norway from the main ridge, and to
cut the main ridge in two at lat. 64°.
All this looks like the packing of ice-chips at the bottom
of the sea in wdiich shells lived ; and the evidence is con-
firmed by other testimony. It has been proved experiment-
ally, that the Swedish coast is rising or the sea falling at
Lofgrund on the Baltic side.
A rock was marked at the sea-level in 1731 by a Swede
246 DENUDATION—FEOST-MAEKS—LAND-ICE.
named raidman. In 1834 Lyell found the mark two feet
seven inches above water, and made a fresh mark. In 1849,
Chambers found Lyell's mark six inches above the water-line.
It seems plain that this district and the last described
were, like Grc^enland, large islands covered with snow and
local glacier systems, and that ice-floats moved south-westward,
when the sea was at various high levels from 2000 down to
500 feet. On one side of the Atlantic local ice-systems and
the sea hide work in progress ; on the other tlie engine has
left the work bare.
It has yet to Ijc shown why climate has thus changed
place, and why ice moved from N.E. to S.W. when this land
was low. Unless these rock inscriptions can be deciphered^
there seems no clue to this mystery ; but greater puzzles
have been solved.
Taking the Fjairland glacier as a small working sample
of a local ice-system, easily visited and easily rmderstood,
the larger system from which it falls is comprehensible;
and neighbouring systems are found to work on one plan.
Starting from marks which are under moving ice, near Ber-
gen, they lead to a large local system in Southern Norway,
and to one still larger, which covered the southern lialf of
the peninsula, below lat. 04°, and cumberi'd the Baltic and
the North Sea with floating ice. The very same forces, heat
and weight, move; these land-ice systems now tliat tliey are
little ; and moved them when they were big. Tlie same forces
moved tlie wax model in the old tea-tray ; for these two natu-
i;il i>n\\('rs seem to obey laws, Mliicli make lliciii i\]>]^h to air,
watei', and land-ice—to wax, ami it may lu' lo all matter.
CHAPTEE XIX.
DENUDATION 11— FROST-MAIIKS 9 — LAND-ICE 8— OLD LOCAL
SYSTEM 3—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA.
The lesson taught by these two blocks of high land in
Southern Scandinavia is, that two kinds of ice-marks remain
(m this part of the northern hemisphere. There are marks of
local ice-systems which radiated from the watershed. There
are also marks on M-atersheds and high passes ; and on lower
lands, at 3000, 2000, and 500 feet, which do not radiate fr(jm
any watershed, but point N.E. and S.W., or thereby.
Take the northern block of the peninsula, and the same
thing appears.
Starting from lat. 6-4:° N., no road crosses the hills, but
several passes are used, chiefly in winter. One of these is at
Bodij, another at Troniso, another at Alten. Steamers ply
regularly along the western coast from Trondhjem to Ham-
inerfest, and run occasionally to the Waranger Fjord, passing
round the North Cape.
On the other side a good road coasts the Gulf of Bothnia
as far as Haparanda, and steamers ply thence regularly to
Stockholm, crossing to the Paissian side occasionally. From
the Baltic it is easy to work up to the watershed on any of
the large rivers in boats.
The Norwegian coast of this block has been described by
.
many tourists ; the glacial phenomena were seen by Forbes.*
* Norway Mini its Glacier.s.
248 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
Here are a few first impressions :
—
" Auyiist 8ih, 1849.—The coast during the day not very re-
markable;passed tlie Yi^ten islnnds ; nortli of these is Leko,
Avliere sume Norsk king lies J.nried with his fleet and crew.
"9th.— Scenery impruvi'ig ;dl day: passed Torget, an
ishmd with a hirge hole through it near the top ; it is big
enough for a ship to sail through, hnt far above the present
water-line. It is said that this cave is strewed with sea sand.
Passed Helgeland, and landed a hospitable young Norwegian
returning from his travels. Passed the mountains called the
Seven Sisters, which were hid in mist.
" Passed the Hestman, a strange island on the Arctic Circle
;
it has some likeness to a bearded horseman with a long cloak,
riding through the sea. The stoiy goes that this was a knight
from whom a lady fled ; he shot an arrow after her, which
went through Torget and knocked her head off in Leko. Her
remains and the arrow were changed to stone, and are shown
in Leko.
" The horseman is weathered slate; the horse's ears are
points which overhang a cliff; the sloi^e of the cloak corre-
sponds to the dip of the beds.
" Ono at sunset was magnificent ; the sha})e put me in
mind of jNIont St. Michael in Normandy.
" Clot to P>odo in the night. The scenery all day very
fine ; lofty peaks rising from the sea, and low islands inter-
spersed ; landwards, a succession of mountains with patches of
snow on their sides, and long fjords running up amongst them.
(Opposite to this place is Quickjok in Sweden.)
" lOth.—Till two r. iM. fishing, shooting, and sketching in
Hodo. My coiiiradc saw the shell-beds mentioned by Von
lUicli.
"Steamed through a very luinnw passage full of eider-ducks
NOKTIIEKN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LUL'AL SYSTEM. li49
close to Skaadstind, and crossed to the Lofodens. The view
of the peak behind us at 9.30 was quite magnificent."
This hill has been sketched several times in passing up
and down this coast. It is a cliff on the north side, and a
very steep slope on the other. At a guess it must be 4000
feet high. The ridge is several miles long, and like a knife-
edge. It is a case of upheaval and weathering on a great scale.
" The I.ofodens are a succession of needles rising one behind
the other. They are like the aiguilles of Mont Blanc, or
the Cuchullin Hills in Skye. Here is the best fishing ground
in Norway. They fish in open boats all winter, and as it is
pitch dark it must be cold dreary work (see Fig. 30, p. 137).
"In these islands, lat. 68° to 70°, corn ripens, so the
climate is not severe. It is said that seed corn is sent down
to Bergen, about lat. G0°.
" 11th.—Cruising all night amongst the islands, calling at
various stations. When w^e rose we were near the place where
we went to bed. Steaming all day amongst islands. Scenery
less grand, but still very fine.
" 12th.—Tromsij. The captain went .shooting.
" At this station the steamer stops for a day, so this island
has been explored. It is low, and ice-ground. Beds of shells
were found at a considerable height above the present sea-
level in digging drains. The low grounds are terraces of
boulders, and ridges of rock. Visited a Lapp encampment in
Tromsodal, and sketched the tribe. In the evening the sound
was alive with seath (cole-fish). Numbers of boats were
fishing, but they did not understand the white fly, and seemed
to catch little.
" 13th.—Scenery all day very fine. Glaciers on tlie hills;
fine bold peaks, showing in all directions bare savage moun-
tains, as wild as the High Alps, with the sea at their feet.
250 DENUDATION—FROST-.MAEKS—LAND-ICE.
(^uiraiiger Fjord, where we dropped the Aniptrnan, was a
inagnificent piece of wild grandeur.
" 14:th.—Got to Kaafjord, and found Robert Chambers.
Visited the mines, whieh are chiefly open galleries cut under
the rock. Ice four feet thick made the floor, and men were
busy picking it out." (This was the only symptom of cold;
the weather was warm as spring in England.)
" After dinner Chambers proposed a walk to measure one
of the terraces. We started accordingly, taking a passage to
Oskar Naes in a boat which was going to Bosekaap. Some of
the boatmen were Quains. I took an oar, and pulled with an
t)ld man against a boy, a IsTorskman, and a Quain ; and we soon
got into the swing, shouting and trying which side could pull
the other round. I had the bow oar, so kept the old boat under
control, to the wonderment of the adversaries. At last myally, the old Quain, smashed his oar, upon which the Nor-
wegians abused him for a Quain and a lubber, and we paddled
ashore. These fellows are so like a set of Highland boatmen
that it is hard to flincy them anything else. Chambers now
began his operations. All this coast is supposed to have
risen from the sea at some distant period, and the vestiges
of raised beaches are found in all the quiet fjords. These are
lofty terraces of detritus lying over rocks polished as if by
glaciers. The strioe on these are most beautifully marked.
The terraces rise in steps one above the other, and with a
very slight slope towards the ocean from the heads of the
fjords. Sometimes a long point juts out into the centre of the
inlet ; sometimes it is a bay that is filled with large heaps of
rounded stone. But in almost every case the terrace on one
side has a corresponding groove on the other, and when the
sun shines brightly they look like works of art.
" My fancy is that they have been the nutraines of enormous
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEJI. 251
glaciers, which at some former period filled all the valleys;
that these glaciers, after polishing the rocks in their coiu-se,
have, from some unexplained cause, melted away, leaving
enormous heaps of stones, as we see them now in Switzerland
and elsewhere. Stones so deposited lie over polishings,
and so do the Alten terraces. The next operation is not so
easily understood. The points wliich jut out into Alten
Fjord are evidently portions of a much larger mass wliich
filled the whole valley,* and it seems clear that the terraces
on their sides must have been sea-beaches at different times.
The land, therefore, must have risen ; but what can have dug-
out the portion now filled by the sea ? Where it has all gone
is to me incomprehensible. I shall wait till I get the paper
which Chambers is to write.
" Tlie method of measuring is ingenious enough ; a spirit-
level with a looking-glass in the middle, and a pair of sights,
is all the apparatus. He knows the height from his heel to
his eye ; stands at high-water, takes some stone or stick
above him at the level of his eye, and walks up to it. From
this point he starts again, and so on to the top ; by multiply-
ing the distance from eye to heel by the number of trials, he
gets a pretty con-ect measure.
" We tried several terraces, and walked back through a
scattered wood of Scotch firs groM'ing amongst large loose
stones, along the side of the fjord to Kaafjord. It was a
pretty walk, and my companion was most agreeable, full of
anecdote, chatty, and good-humoured. He had been wander-
ing about for some weeks exploring the fjords, and had met
with some queer adventures. Once his telescope, during
some complicated land-survejdng, lighted upon a reindeer;
* This .M'fins to lie an (rmr. Aiiotlirr cxiilanatiim nf tin- terraces is
atteiiiiitiMl lieluw.
252 DENUDATION— FKOST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
once he encountered u l)ig Imck on <a narrow terrace. The deer
stoj)[)ed and stared, the phih)Sopher did the same, and liad it
in his mind to move liis instruments and make room, in case
he should get the worst of a figlit. But just as he had de-
cided on a move, the deer ran up the hill, made a circuit, and
returned to the terrace, his road. One fancy is to jday Scotch
tunes on a ilute to the deer, and the seals, and the Lapps, in
the quiet still twilight of a northern night, and dream of the
wonder wliich the melodies rouse. The musician was a good
one, and tiie idea romantic. We returned to tea by daylight,
and went to Ix'd by twilight at eleven. The peculiar mild
light of these summer nights is delightful. Everything looks
so still and quiet, and the outlines of the mountains cut so
clear against the warm sky. It is different from anything I
ever saw before, and most enjoyable."
In 1851, June 24, a fall near Trondhjem was sketched;
on the 2(3tli a careful sketcli was made at Alstahong, at the
foot of the Seven Sisters. The high tops are weathered;
lower hills ice-ground to a great height. On the 25th the
" Horseman" was sketched for the second time ; on the 27th,
Skaadsthid ; on tlie 28th, Hindi) ; on the 29th, Lapps at
Tromsfi ; on the 2d of Juh', Hammerfest, the most northern
town in the world ; was visited and sketched.
In August the same coast was seen for the third time.
In 1852, June 8, the same fall on the Nid was drawn
again ; on the 10th, Torgluetten ; on the 11th, Skaadstind
and Svolvu'r ()). 137) ; (in the 12th, Tromso at midnight.
" The sea was calm ; the; air still and Avarm ; the sky to the
soulli one lu'iglit luminous haze (if ])ur})le and yellow ; the
liills and snow-wreaths glowed witli that strange rosy fire of
whirl) Alpine Iravellei-s ra\c wlieii they have once seen the
sun lise from some niounlain liivnuae. The level northern rays
254 DENUDATION—FROST-^f.UJKS—LAXD-ICE.
tlirew long blue shadows on the quiet sound, and the sleepy
chatter of a stray gull, or the dash of a big fish rolling after a
little one, were the only sounds that broke the silence. As the
sun sailed along the northern horizon the shadows moved, l)ut
the colours remained ; sunset glow deepened till it reached its
depth ; then rosy sunrise gradually faded into the bright light
of a summer day. Poets have ' hailed the smiling morn
whose rosy fingers ope the gates of day.' Here the gates of
day are open for six weeks."
In August the same voyage was made for the fifth time.
" The climate is charming. The air is balmy and the sea
land-locked. The life of a Norwegian steamer is the lands-
man's notion of a sailor's occupation, which according to the
old story is to ' sit and let the wind blow you along.' There
is no summer mist, or storm, or snow, or ice, on this coast of
the Atlantic, It is a warm sunny region with a long summer
day of six weeks. Every house has some attempt at gardening.
At Tromso the consul planted some Jerusalem artichokes witli
other plants in a field, and could not make out what on earth
they were when two grew up. Every living-room is a green-
house. In the windows, geraniums, cacti, myrtles, and such-
like foreigners, bloom and flourish under careful tending.
The favourite ornament on tombs are bright flowers.
Nothing can be more different from the common notion of
arctic regions. Here is life in Hammerfest, between 70' and
71° iN.
" 1851, JuJjj Id.—Took my sketching materials, and wan-
dered about the hills to the north of the town. Snow lay in
patches close to the water's edge, but spring flowers were
si:)routing in every sheltered nook wliere they had room to
grow. Close to the town is a large l)ank of stones and gravel
some fifty feet higli, evidently an old sea-beach. Behind this
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 255
is a lake from which a small stream flows throiigli an opening
in the mound. On this stands a flour-mill, which was grind-
ing as I passed, and in it a salmon-trap is fixed. The town
has no road. It stands on a point in an island beside a
famous harbour. The roads were full of vessels of many
nations, the largest number Prussians. These were odd-looking
three-masted craft, with high bowsprits and a cross-yard,
rigged like old pictures of English men-of-war. The houses
are all of wood, as usual, and they are ranged in rows with
some likeness to streets. On the gravel bank are lots of turf
houses, the dwellings of fisher Lapps. Bearded Eussians,
Englishmen, Swedes, Germans, Quams, Finns, Lapps, and
Portuguese, were lounging about doors, smoking, and chattering
all manner of tongues. Poat-loads of dried cod and seath
were being tossed mto warehouses. They seemed to be as
hard as sticks, but every boy had a bit in his pocket, and, as
he ran about or played, he crunched off little splinters and
sucked them, as an English child might suck toffee. On
every available corner hung strings of dried and drying fish,
and the bottom of the sea and the beach were chiefly made of
l.iack-bones. Sheep, cows, and goats, wandered about under
festoons of cod, picking up odd bits, and munching with
vast relish. Even on the house-tops goats were perched,
browsing on grass which flourishes where barren tiles usually
are. Smells were rank and rife. To add to the general odour
of dried fish, several establishments were boiling train and
cod-liver oil. It is a queer place altogether.
"About bedtime, a couple of Germans came in and
insisted on treating me to champagne. A Norsk doctor
joined, and we sat up till midnight, and toasted the midnight
sun, which was still shining brightly in at the windows at
one in the morning, when we went to bed.
256 DENUDATION—FROST-^fAKKS—LAND-ICE.
" lu winter it is another affair. Fuel is scarce and dear;
cows are fed on cods' heads and horse-dung ; and the island
is smothered in snow. But, even in winter, the sea never
freezes here."
The corresponding climate on the opposite coast of the
Atlantic is more than twenty degrees further south.
That is the present state of the Norwegian coast of Fin-
mark ; ice-marks tell of a very different climate which has
passed away.
The views held by Chambers before his visit to Alten in
1849 are published.*
In this book the author proves the existence of a series of
ancient sea-margins in the British Isles, which maintain their
horizontality round the islands, and correspond pretty well to
similar terraces in Scandmavia and North America. He
argues that they may have resulted from a subsidence of a
sea-bottom, and a consequent general sinking of the sea-level
everywhere ; in short, from a general approach of the Avater-
line towards the earth's centre, by a sinking in of a great part
of the ocean.
This is a larger change than the raising up of a portion of
the earth's crust in one place, and a corresjionding depression
elsewhere, without any general change in the earth's diameter
which a general sinking of the sea implies.
Views which Chambers held after his visit are also pub-
lished in a series of entertaining papers.t The notions with
which the writer set off from Alten in 1849 are given above
(p. 250). The lesson which he learned then, and the way in
whicli it was learned, may have some interest for those who
may not wish to travel so far.
* Ohaml.or.s O,, Anrict Sm-iVimjius. K.lin)nirt,'li, 184S.
t Kdiiiliur^'li JoiiviiMl.
NOETHEEN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 257
The country where Eussia, Sweden, and Norway join;
the tracts about the Tana and Alten ; the head waters of the
Tornea and Lulea ; the mountains of Swedish Lapland, and
low lands to the north and north-west of the Gulf of Bothnia,
from the North Cape of Norway, nearly to Umea in Sweden,
correspond in latitude to inaccessible ice, which now blocks
up the sea-coast of Greenland opposite to Iceland. If ever
the sea was up to the base of hills in Scandinavia, there may
also have been an ice-block about moimtains which correspond
to the coast-line near which the block now is.
The writer first acquired the notion of a Baltic current
from what he saw in Northern Scandinavia during four long
summer holidays spent in wandering amongst the places
above named.
In July 1849 he started from Hull for Hamburg, crossed
thence to Copenhagen, via Lubek and JNIalmo, steamed to
Gotheborg, drove south to Falkenberg, and back to Gothe-
borg, whence he steamed to Christiania. Thence he drove
up Gulbrandsdal, and over the Dovre Fjeld to Trondhjem,
whence he steamed to Alten. On the last day of August two
comrades set oft' to walk over the mountains to Sweden, and
the following extracts describe part of the district which cor-
responds to the great ice-block off Greenland, between Jan
INIayen and Iceland.
" Friday, August ?>\st, was our last day at Alten. Mrs.
M. walked over to see the last of us. I walked over to make
my bow to the old Foged, and to get his autograph on mypassport ; and by 1.45 we were ready to start. T., with a
Norsk doctor, had returned from Hammerfest, and they had
gone on to Yoraholm, where we were to meet them, and have
a farewell dinner with C, the Foged, and his son.
" XJla, from whom we had hired baggage-horses, came
258 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
down with his cart to take the baggage part of the way ; and
my comrade mounted a horse. I began as I meant to finish
—I sliouldered my gun, and walked to C.'s quarters in an
hour.
" There we had an Alten dinner—mutton and milk, beer,
porter, and biscuits. Plates, cups, and knives were scarce,
but our pockets and flasks supplied the want ; and biscuits
made plates, which we, like the pious ./Eneas, devoured. Aglass of unwonted wine made us all as jolly as princes.
"In the meantime our three steeds were gettmg into
harness ; and a precious job it seemed to be. My ' solid
leather' portmanteau could not be managed at all. They
stuck it up on the top of a saddle ; they hung it on one side;
and when it would ride nowhere, they wanted to cut it in
two. I thought of a Spanish mule, which had carried it with
three times as much, and the driver perched on the top of
the heap, and refused my consent ; so it was finally swathed
in a quaint pannier of twisted birch roots, and balanced with
something which made the horse-load about 150 pounds, and
the packing was ended.
" Abraham Mothka, the Lapp guide, took the bridle of one
horse ; the one-eyed Ula, the best boatman in the river, took
another ; and we started.
" T. and his lot took boat for Veena. C. ferried us over
the Yoraholm river, walked to the Stengles, and fished home;
and we set off through the forest.
" We were a curious lot certainly.
" First marched Abraham, a little, wiry, wrinkled, sandy-
haired man, with a scrubby beard, dressed in a reindeer cap,
turned up with blue. His body was draped in a mangy
reindeer pesk ; a thing like a shirt, made fast about the waist
with a girdle, from which dangled a knife. His legs were
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 25'J
clad in a pair of yellow comagas, stuffed with grass ; and on
his back he bore about thirty pounds of smoked salmon. The
tails of the fish wagged and flapped like a couple of fins, one
on each side, as he trudged steadily on, with a short black
wooden pipe in his cheek.
" He w^as the picture of a savage. His father was a
Quain and his mother a Lapp ; he gets drunk when he can,
and knows the country by day or night, in summer or winter,
for hundreds of miles, whether he is drunk or sober. He
leant far forward, trod on his heels, and shuffled over the
ground at a very deceptive pace.
"Then came a horse with a couple of Quain panniers,
swathing a lot of deerskins for beds, a prog-basket, a bottle-
holder, and my rod, which stuck out over the beast's liead
like a bowsprit.
"Then came my comrade, T., in a razeed brigand's hat,
shading a pair of blacking-brush moustaches and an unshorn
chin, his shoulders covered with the tails of an old mack-
intosh sewn into a cape, and the rest of his rig seedy Ijut
civilized.
" Then came a second horse with a light load, intended as
a resource in case any one broke down.
" Then came Ula, with one eye out, but the other as sharp
as his nose and his temper. His dress was a black leathern
cap with a peak, gray woollen jacket, waistcoat, and loose
leggings, over whicli came a pair of the everlasting long
comagas.
" Tlien came the third horse, and then a traveller in an
old kilt jacket, an old pair of rent trousers, a hat stuck round
with feathers and flies, and a gun for pot-shooting.
" T.'s dog, Fan, wriggled her stump of a tail, and ran
backwards and forwards, stopping every now and then to
260 DENUDATION—FEOST-MAEKS—LAND-ICE.
fight a lemen or smell out a mouse ; and there was a proces-
sion worthy of the hackwoods.
" I soon got tired of the pace, so pushed on, and found myway to Veena, after a four hours' march from Yoraholm. By
10.30 P.M. we were at our old trade, brewing toddy and coffee,
boiling salmon and reindeer ham, and putting it out of sight.
" Dinner over, we sallied out of the log-hut to breathe the
cool evening air ; and I shall never forget the scene.
" Veena is surrounded by a flourishing wood of tall graceful
birches, amongst which tower the blackened skeletons of a
forest of dead pines. They are blasted, withered, gaunt ruins
of trees, drilled by ^^'Oodpeckers and boring insects, overgrown
with moss, half barked, wild, and picturesque at all times
;
but now at the foot of the wildest of tlie lot our pet savage
Abraham had kindled a fire with the entire root of another
fallen pine. The flame, crackling and roaring, crept and
climbed from root to root, and flew off with a fountain of
sparks into the blue sky ; while the fire lit up pines and
birches, and even the lofty rocks above them, till they glowed
again. In the brightest light of all lay Abo himself, stretched
at his ease on a pile of branches, and round liim in every pos-
sible attitude of lazy rest lay the tired boatmen. Some shaded
their brown faces from the glare while they watched Abo's
bonfire ; others were sound asleep ; and one with a pipe in his
cheek sat staring fixedly at a salmon which was broiling on a
stick for supper. Even old M., though not an admirer of
nature, exclaimed, 'How very beautiful !' and we agreed that
we wished we had all been born and bred savages.
" This promised well for our expedition, so we returned to
our den with light hearts, had a pipe, and at one in the morn-
ing rolled ourselves upon the boarded floor, and were soon fast
as churches. Walked five liours.
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 2G1
" September 1st.—I began tlie morning by slaying a brace
of ducks on a pond near the hut. Then came the usual toilet
by the river, then breakfast and a pipe, and then, at 9.30, after
shaking of hands, we parted from our kind friends and hospi-
table entertainers. May they be lucky as long as they live,
for they are a jolly good-tempered set of hearty Englishmen.
I was sorry to part even with the wooden walls of old Veena,
and spent some time in touching up ray name on the log
which bears the signature of so many wandering fishermen.
" The way was a very badly marked path, leading up a glen
to the south of Sara Eapids, through woods of birch and pine.
The loaded horses went slowly in such ground, so we beat
about with the dog for game.
" I heard some reiper * scolding at a weazel which I saw
amongst the trees, but nothing else was seen or heard till we
cleared the wood. Here we fell in with the winter track.
On every side were marks of reindeer travellers. Eemnants
of polks, bleached deer-horns, the ashes of bivouacs, bones,
and scraps of rag fluttering on stumps ; but road or path there
was none, for their road is the winter's snow, and of that there
was not a remnant left.
" By noon we w^ere fairly out of the wood, and then our
guides called a halt to let the horses feed, for there is no more
grass fit for grazing for many miles.
" We unloaded at the side of a pretty little bum, knocked
up a fire with some planks which were bleaching on the hill-
side ; and whilst the men plucked and roasted the ducks, T.
slept, and I sketched, while the mosquitoes dined.
"AMiat a plague these brutes must be in summer. Even now^
* Eeiper, willow grouse. A bird which, in size, shape, voice, and habits,
closely resembles the Scotch grouse. In summer the plumage is gray and
brown, in winter white. Commonly sold in London.
2Cy2 DENKDATK »X—1"K( )ST-MA1:KS—LAND-ICE.
they were a coufirnied nuisance ; and the curious thing is that
the higher up and further north you get, the worse they are.
" By three the ducks were eaten, so T. mounted the spare
horse, and I trudged on ahead up a long hill till I reached the
mist. Then thinking of Clerk's adventure* in this region, I
waited for Aho.
" His Norsk is bad, so is mine, so we conversed little ; but I
admired the quaint little figure trudging steadily on, without
ever seeming to doubt for one instant which way to turn.
" We were now fairly out on the fjeld, and there was not
a bush for a land-mark ; the mist was thick as porridge, and
the ground seemed to be repeated at every hundred yards.
" There were gray mist, gray moss, gray stones, and gray
rocks, all of one pattern, with here and there a bit of soft
marsh, covered with dwarf mountain rhododendron, dwarf
birch, shrubs, and multiber. Occasionally a golden plover
flew screaming into the mist as w^e approached his domains,
and now and then enormous white owls appeared like moun-
tain ghosts, screeched at us, and vanished.
" Lemens were everywhere. They ran round stones as we
passed, hardly deigning to hide or enter their holes. Even
when they did go to ground, their heads were out again in an
instant to stare at us ; and if Fan, or her masters, or even a
horse, came too near, the little brutes began to squeak, and
dance, and spit, like perfect furies. I am sure I might have
killed Imndreds, but because the world is wide I left them in
peace. Not so their foes the owls ; I tried to bag one, but in
\iim. Either they were too strong, or the mist deceived me
as to distance, or I was too keen and missed them, for I killed
* A vi'iy loiijj;stnrvalnjut a Norwegian wlm lost Lis way on this nioTHitaiii,
il \\:\s iiPiii-lv stai'vcil.
XOKTIIERX SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 2G3
" Once the mist lifted and showed us a glimpse of the dis-
tant country ; and a more dreary, desolate, cheerless waste
would be hard to find* There were lakes and stones, rock
and deer moss, as far as the eye could reach, without a hill,
almost without a marked feature to impress it on the memory
;
and yet I see it now as I saw it then.—A gray sea of rounded
rocks ; a flock of wild geese sailing overhead below the mist
;
and a large white owl, as big as an eagle, perched like a mile-
stone upon a great block in the foreground ; horses and men
looking damp and shiny, and clouds of smoke rising from
hides, jackets, and newly-lit pipes.
" The mist closed in again as thick as ever in a short time.
I fired at the owl on the boulder, and he vanished ; so we
plodded on to Salavuoma.
" Just at dark, about an English mile from our resting-
place, we came upon a colony of fjeld-rev—mountain-foxes.
They had drilled a sand-hill as full of holes as a rabbit-warren.
Our first notice of their presence was a sharp angry yelp from
a little fellow perched as sentinel on the top ; he was answered
from all sides, and in a moment they had all scampered home
and were out of sight. I crept stealthily up to the spot,
peered over as quietly as I could, and spied a pair of sharp
ears against the sky. The owner was evidently listening, and
my gun was up in a moment, but the ears were under ground
before I could fire. I could hear the brute yelping and
snarling under ground with three or four others. I waited
for a long time in hopes that one would venture to peep out,
but they continued their subterranean music till I left them
in despair. They seemed about the size of small terriers, and
looked gray in the dusk.
* It is exactly like the high countiy near Reykjavik, except tliat the
stones are volcanic in Iceland.
264 DENUDATION—FROST-MAllKS—L.VND-ICE.
" We found the human family wlio are paid for living at
Salavuoma, sitting over a fire. They were dressed like Lapps,
in deerskin pesks and leggings, with well-stuffed comagas
on their feet. INIeu and women were smoking after their
supper ; one jolly fat old woman, with bare legs, rose to wel-
come us, lighted some slips of birch bark for lack of bedroom
candles, and in ten minutes a roaring fire was blazing in the
guest-room, while we were busy about coffee and a stew. Alarge bowl of goat's milk was added, but neither of us could
master it, so we brewed some toddy instead, and turned in for
the night. Walked ten hours, distance said to be four Norsk
miles, twenty-eight English.
" September 2d.—Mist thick again. T. very anxious to get
on ; so despite of the mist and the day we started. Provender
getting low, so we were forced to carry guns. The old womanhad some splendid char and trout for her owu breakfast, and
it seems that they live chiefly on fish and goat's milk. They
were dirty, fat, long-haired, lazy, and something worse ; men
and women dressed alike, each armed with a big toller knife.
The house is built of logs, and has a but and a ben. It
lies in a sort of scattered wood of scrubby birch, amongst a
wilderness of moss, lakes, burns, and multiberry moors. The
people are paid by Government to live there, and in winter
they have no lack of company, for the road is much travelled,
but in summer they rarely see a strange human being.
Started 8.30—T. riding for the first two hours, Fan fighting
lemens, and I making observations with my compass, and
hoping for a shot at something good to eat.
" The whole country hereabouts is intersected by ridges of
water-worn stones running about north and south. On these
grow bii'ch trees, and between them the ground is boggy,
overgrown with nuiltiberries, swineberries (cranberries), and
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 2G5
mountain rliododendron. Wherever the rock shows, it is
rounded and worn, and big wandering blocks of gray stone
lie scattered in all directions.
" Lakes meet one at every turn, and without Abraham it
would be hard to get on. Abo never doubted, but pounded on
through bog and mire, and over mountain, in mist and sun-
shine, without a pause, Now he would point at a large lake
and say, ' That is the winter way ;' and then he would curse
the bogs, and grin, and set off again. He is the queerest
mortal I have seen.*
" We lunched in rain on the shore of a lake under an
extempore tent made of luggage and plaids, birch trees and
fishing-rods, and then trudged on again to the Mars Elv,
which we reached at 5.30. Here the men wanted to halt and
camp, but T. insisted on pushing for a hut at Bingasjerve. I
was neuter, and at last T. carried his point. We forded the
river, and a horse sprained his fetlock so badly that he had to
be unloaded. Then the men had to take off their boots, and
stuff them with dry grass. So we lost a good hour. In the
sand were fresh tracks of two reindeer. Our way now led
along the foot of a considerable hill, through a bank of brush-
wood, in which every tree was a shower-bath. W^e were
drenched like drowned rats in no time. To our left lay an
enormous tract of flat moor, almost too soft for a man, and
impassable for a horse. Evening mists floated over it like a
silver gauze, showing distant hills and lakes, to hide them the
next moment. It was like the shifting of scenes in a theatre,
* " We proceeded over a slightly undulating country, the lower parts being
generally more or less swampy and multebaer muir, and passed on our route
several moraines running north and south. The stones were large, and loosely
huddled together, proving almost conclusively, were other proofs wanting, that
the whole country over which we were now walking had been at some period
buried by glaciers."
—
Travdhr's Journal, p. 137.
266 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
or dissolving views. It was very beautiful, but looked very
unwliolesome, and it was not comfortable. We plodded on
thus till dark, when we struck off to the left, men growling
all the tuue, and I beginning to wish I had taken part in the
debate at the river. Then we got amongst a lot of rocks,
which ended in a precipice. Then into a wood of birches
growing on the side of a very steep hill, where the poor
horses went tumbling about like drunken men. Then we got
into a lake, and waded round a big stone. Then we got into
a river, which we forded ; and finally into a dense thicket
of willow, which reached to my nose, and finished the
drenching of everything. The thicket passed, the lame horse
tumbled back on his haunches into the river, but we pulled
him up again, and in ten minutes more reached Bingasjerve.
" My comrade had all along expected to find a roaring fire
and a welcome ; but there was no one here, so we marched in
and took possession of everything we wanted. First, we made
a fire, then a stew, and we rolled oui'selves upon the floor at
one in the morning.
" I don't know that I was ever much more knocked up, and
I was somewhat wroth with my chum for saying that it was
all the fault of Abo. I held my tongue till I had smoked a
pipe, and then the wrath went off with the smoke, and we
slept side by side in peace and harmony. Walked during
eleven and a half hours, distance said to be six Norsk miles,
about forty-two English. Pace good, hardly four miles all
the time, but sometimes fully that."
" Start 8.30 a.m., halt 11 p.m.
" Sd.—' Chi va piano va sano chi va sano va lontano clii
va forte va al a morte,' say the Italians ; "More hurry worse
speed," say we. One horse was so lame that he could not
stir, so we had to stop all day.
NORTHEEN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 2G7
'•' Tlie weather was very fine, and the place pretty. I
spent most of the time in vain attempts to catch fish with
the fly. The men took a boat and a net in the evening, and
rowed out to tiy their luck.
" It is curious thus to find a house deserted in the midst of
a wilderness—doors open, and everything lying about as if
the people had gone for a walk. Nets upon poles beside the
door, the boat made fast to a stake, deerskins on the bed,
some mouldy tea-leaves in a cracked tea-pot ; a Finsk Bible
on a shelf with a page turned down ; in short, the whole
tenement as the tenant left it in spring, and as he hopes to
find it in autumn. It speaks well for the wandering Lapps,
and for the solitude of the place.
" It is strange to find so few wild creatures in such a
country. The lakes seem made for wildfowl, and there are
hardly any ; even the lemens begin to get scarce, and the owls
have vanished altogether. Even the fish do not show, and
the landscape gives a feeling of the most perfect solitude and
repose. Except our party, and the mosquitoes, there was not
a living creature seen all day.
" After stewing and devouring our solitary reiper, which
I shot yesterday, we lay down early, intending to leave the
horse to the wolves, if he did not mend by morning. By
daylight our last night's path seems so dangerous, that it is
a mercy we did not break our own legs or necks.
"September 4:th, 1849.—Nearly disabled this morning by a
mosquito. The men were up before daylight to drag their net,
and came back by four with some sik and roding. The
first I had never seen before. He is a very pretty gray fish,
something like a herring, with a leather mouth and large
scales. He will not take the fly, but the people catch numbers
in still nets, and salt them for winter store.
268 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
" Off at 6 A.M., and got as far as the river, which we had
crossed iu the dark when we arrived. Here the baggage had
to be sorted, so it was seven before we were fairly under
weigh. We now struck upon hard ground, and walked
along merrily. The day was splendid, bright and clear, and
every now and then we fell in with coveys of reiper, which
helped to keep us moving. The horses kept a straight line,
now floundering in a bog, now scrambling up a rock, but
without any serious mishap. At one place, indeed, they all
three stuck fast, and we had to unload, and carry the traps
ourselves for a hundred yards or so. At one we halted, made
a famous fire, and a stew of three reiper, which were deli-
cious. At three we started again, and having got the line
from Abraham, T. and I with Fan walked on ahead looking
for game.
" The country all this time was a succession of low flat
ridges, or rather slopes, covered with reindeer moss, with
valleys between, in which birches grew. Every here and
there came a bog covered with berries : and lakes were in
every direction. In the far distance, to the eastward, a few
naked hills and some patches of snow were visible. The
general character of the landscape was flat and ugly.
" When the cavalry came up T. mounted, and we held on
till we came to a splendid view from the top of the highest
hill we had come to. Our destination, Kautokeino, was in
the distance ; at our feet, a green forest of birches ; and as
far as the eye could reach, northward and eastward, the same
rolling sea of gray moss-clad rocks, birches, lakes, bogs, and
stones.
*' Then came a bad bog, which we got over with difficulty;
and then came night. The horses began to flag ; their mas-
ter growled ; and then we came to a birch wood and a river.
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 269
Kautokeino had been seen, so T. wanted to go on. Ula wanted
to stop, so did Abo ; it was a fine night, and I had no wish
for another scramble in the dark, so I voted, and turned the
scale. The place seemed made for a camp, so I declared myintention of stopping there with the horses. T. would go on
to the houses with Abo, but Abo was of a different opinion.
He explained that the ford was up to his breast, and that he
could not swim ; and, by the time the river had been examined
and the argument finished, we had a fire lighted and a shelter
made. It looked snug, so T. joined our party. A deerskin
on the ground, a gaff-stick for a ridge-pole, and a plaid, made
a tent ; a roaring fire and a brew of coffee, and a reiper roasted
in his feathers, a jorum of hot punch and a long jaw, kept us
well employed till past eleven ; and then we drew on our
sleeping boots, put on great-coats, crept into our nests, and
slept like tops. Once I awoke, being too hot, and found that
Abo had piled up a bonfire. He was grinning at me through
the smoke. We grinned nmtually for some time, then I took
an observation of my comrade's long legs, which projected
from his shelter in a highly picturesque fashion ; and then I
rolled over again and slept till seven. I would not give such
travelling for the best down bed in Windsor.
" Killed ten reiper, one widgeon, one diver. Walked
during thirteen hours—pace good—distance not stated ; but
not so hard a day as the last.
'^ Sfptcmhcr 5tJi.—Up at 7, Avarm as a pie. Blew up
the fire, made coffee and a stew, and were ready for a start
at 9.15. Ula was in a bad humour, so I jawed him, and he
came round.
" The ford was only up to our knees, but the men were too
busy about their own garments to mind the horses, so two of
them made up the stream. I caught one, and saved my
270 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
portmanteau from a ducking ; but I could not manage the
other. In he went, deeper and deeper, while the men roared
and cursed. At last, the packs were fairly in the water and
the brute afloat. Then, with a rush and a plunge, he emerged,
dripping like a water-horse, and toddled off in search of grass.
The rest followed, and the men ran after them, swearing in
many languages, while we were left on the river bank. They
soon came back, and we proceeded.
" Our way now lay through a wood of well-grown birches
growing upon sand-hills. There were patlis and tracks, and
here and there patches of bare sand, where we could see the
tracks of men, and dogs, and cows. Here, too, w^e found the
track of the army of lemens which we had met on the fjeld.
They seemed to have marched in a compact body, following
the beaten path where there was one, and taking the best
road everywhere. Here and there lay the body of a defunct
straggler, to prove that the tracks were really what they
seemed ; but there was not a live lemen to be seen anywhere.
What odd little brutes these are ! They march, as if by
agreement, from some unknown eastern point, and invade
Norway like a swarm of locusts. They swim rivers, climb
hills, burrow holes everywhere, and gnaw and nibble every-
thing till they reach the sea. Even then they strike out
westward, for the islands get full of them. At last they dis-
appear as mysteriously as they came. No one knows whence
they come or where tliey go ; but every two or three years
they arrive in shoals as I saw them, and after a time they
vanish." They abound in North America.
The first leraen I ever saw was at Bosekaap, in 1849.
Late one evening, when night was beginning to show, my host
and I were smoking about the doors, while a dog was running
about near the house. Suddenly we heard a scrimmage near
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 271
an outhouse, the barking of the dog, and the sharp angry chat-
tering note of some other creature. My host exclaimed, ' The
lemens are come,' ran off to the scene of action, and came
back panting with a yellow animal like a marmot, but no
bigger than a small rat. From that day whenever we went
into the woods we found lemens, and smaller black creatures
like sliort-tailed mice. They swim rivers, and trout eat them,
for I have several times cut freshly-swaUowed lemens and
mice out of trout which took my fUes in the Alton.
In 1851, June 14 and 15, I fell in with the same or
another swarm on the flanks and the top of the FUle Fjeld,
by the road -side, and on and under snow, above Nystuen,
about ten degrees of latitude farther south than Alten. The
people were killing them and selling their skins, and the way-
side was strewed with carcases slain by dogs and men. Aterrier was of our party, and there was a grand hunt (see
page 227).
In September of the same year, a man who sat behind mycarriole, near Trondhjem, about four degrees further north,
told me that a swarm of lemens had been there. He added
that they fell from the clouds, and that he had seen them
fall ; but on coming to particulars it seemed that after a
heavy shower had fallen, he found live lemens in his field.
Either one swarm had thus passed southwards along the fjeld
and the sea-coast, from Kautokeiuo to Bergen, from lat.
70° to 60°, between September 1849 and June 1851, or there
were many swarms wandering about in the wilds, and descend-
ing upon farmers unexpectedly as if they came from the
clouds. They had certainly walked from Kautokeino west-
ward to the fjeld and Alten in August and September 1849.
In all my Scandinavian wanderings I have never seen another
lemen on mountain or plain. A great deal has been w^ritten
272 DENUDATION—FEOST-MAJIKS—LAND-ICE.
about these strange little brutes, and their migrations, for
which works on natural history may be consulted.
" In the sand we also found the tracks of foxes, and, as we
thought, of wolves. A large eagle flapped lazily past us out
of shot. We saw some cat-owls like those which we had
seen at Alten and on the fjeld. A few curlews, and some
ducks and geese on the river, made up our list of live-stock.
" The Alten river which we met here is more a chain of
lakes. No stream is apparent, and it is nearly an English
mile wide in some places. The banks are sandy, and clothed
with birch and the eternal gray moss.
"We reached Ivautokeino at 11.30, unloaded on the
river bank, and were ferried over in a boat by Eout, the
Swedish merchant, who is established here. Ivautokeino is
a colony of Lapps and Quains, and the village consists of a
church and about a hundred detached wooden huts.
"The parson and his flock, except a few old men and
children, had migrated for the summer. Some were at the
sea-fishing, others on the lakes and the fjeld. Eout had been
Clerk's foreman, and had set up for himself here as handles-
mand. His house was burned some time ago, but it rose
from its ashes fairer than ever, and a very pretty little wife
had been brought in to adorn it. She came from Tromso, and
did not seem much to like her banishment. She spoke of
her former dwelling and her friends as a London lady might
if fate had married her to a wild Highlander, and the contrast
between Mrs. Eout and her neighbours was more striking,
though she came from an island once supposed to be the
limit of the habitable globe, and the head-quarters of northern
witchcraft.
" She had a famous dinner preparing for us. T. went up
stairs and slept, while I washed my gun and saw to the prog-
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 273
basket. For dinner there were roast wild goose, jam, French
beans, and a bottomless meat-pie, wine and liquor, rum
;
and silver spoons and forks to eat with. The lady as usual
handed her dishes, and ate as if by sufferance. That Nor-
wegian custom I like the least, but when done by pretty
women with grace and good will, it is but a mark of hospitality.
Dinner over, we all bowed and said 'Tak for mad.' The
host said, 'Thanks for your agreeable company;' and then
we put the chairs against the wall, shook hands, and fell to
work upon pipes and^;«/«rc?'.
" The men were baking for themselves outside ; and a lean
hungT)'- tribe of dogs were working at my prog-basket. They
opened it ; stole a goose ; upset the pepper ; and were deep
in a jar of butter, when they were discovered and driven
away. Tried to buy a silver brooch, with the old double heart
pattern ; but the old lady who owned it said it was not hers,
and would not part vdth it.
" In winter, this place is full of people. Many have herds
of deer, which scrape their food on the neighbouring hills
;
others have cows, which are housed all winter, and fed on
hay. The place is the resort of merchants who come to the
north for skins. These traders make their journeys in polks,
drawn by deer ; and sleep at stations which are kept up for
them. The long night of six months is 'the season' at
Kautokeino.
" Another such route from Tromso to the Gulf is equally
frequented by Swedes in winter ; and these are the only
regular passes between Norway and Sweden, till Trondhjem
is reached. Frozen game, butter, eggs, milk, and cheese, are
carried from Sweden to Alten. Pesks, comagas, and English
merchandise ; copper kettles, pewter dram -bottles, and
crockery, are carried from Alten stores, and distributed
274 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE,
amongst the borderers by traders like Eout. In summer it is
rare to meet travellers ; for the country is hard to pass, and
there is nothing to tempt them.
" With many bows to Madame, and thanks to Eout, we
paid for what we had bought, crossed the river, and started
at 5.15.
(Some years afterwards, the Quains murdered this poor
fellow. A quarrel had began about selling brandy, and Mrs.
Eout was insulted. The trader was killed in his house, and
Magnus Clerk walked over the fjcld and rescued the lady.
Some years later, after a long trial, a Quain was condemned,
a scaffold was set up at Alten, and the murderer beheaded.)
" The weather, to my eye, looked threatening. I had that
feeling which men share with wild animals before a storm.
It is a kind of dread, and wish to hurry on to shelter,
which I have often felt, and never knew to fail. I can fancy
that it is the instinct which urges sea-birds to fly screaming
inland, long before a gale begins, turning and twisting as
they go. I had the feeling, and it proved a true warning.
" A very handsome old man, with a head like a saint by
Spagnoletto, watched our departure. I gave him some
skillings, and he prophesied good weather ; but that was
gratitude.
" We started, and followed a sort of footpath amongst the
birches, over a low ridge of hills,
" We went first, looking for game ; and having to wait at
one place, the cavalry overtook us. Ula informed me that he
had lost the brandy-keg. Now, this had been newly filled,
and our friends were noted topers ; so I suspected roguery.
* You go back and find it,' said I, ' and I will go on with Abo.'
" * But,' said Ula, ' I don't know the way.'
"' Then go to Kautokeino, and get a guide.'
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 275
"' But I have no inoney,' quotli Ula.
"' Then I will lend you some, and take it off your pay.'
''' Will you wait a moment,' said Ula, ' and I will go back ?
it can't be far ; ' and so we waited.
" Those who hide can find ; and, in a few minutes, Ula
came shouting with the keg under his arm. I said nothing;
but Ula was sulky as a bear with a sore head for the rest of
the day.
"Now came the rain which I had been looking for. It
came from the south-west like a second deluge. Hills, trees,
and lakes vanished as the storm swept up towards us, and the
wind roared and whistled about our ears, while the rushing
sound of falling rain came nearer and nearer. It came at last
in buckets-full, and we began to talk of returning. Pluck had
it at last, so we donned our waterproofs and went on. Abo
marched first, leading a horse, then came T. with a branch to
drive the steed. Then came the lame one, followed by me. Then
came the third horse with our one-eyed attendant, swearing
that we would kill his cattle ; but no one heeded him, for we
knew he would keep up for fear of losing his way. And so
we got on, heads down, and stepping out four and a half
miles to the hour at least. Fan picked up a wand three feet
long, and carried it for more than ten minutes, as if she wanted
to help to drive on ; and so we carried on till dark, when we
got to the Alten again, and forded it, and found the hut in the
dark.
"The river bank was clean, but the weather was wild.
jMortana was dirty, but dry ; so we made the best of it and
entered. The master and his wife were in a sort of bed in
one corner, and turned out all standing to welcome their
guests. The old woman soon after went out, and I found her
nest in a hay-shed next morning.
276 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
" The man, with his red elf locks, wild and dishevelled,
standing out like a glory round his head, sat glaring like a
wild beast, with scared sleepy eyes ; and from another lair in
another corner two half-grown human creatures, boys or girls,
stared with equal wonder. From a pile of furs upon the floor
peered the heads of two or three sleeping children, and some
unseen dogs growled from some dark hiding-place.
"At last the sleepy master rose from his seat on the
bed and kicked the dogs into the rain to cool their tempers
I own I did not fancy such close quarters.
" There was no help for it, so we hung up our wet gar-
ments on the rafters, boiled the kettle, and spread our deer-
skins upon the clay floor close to the babies. Abo pulled off
his wet pesk, and rolled in amongst the two nondescripts.
Ula lay down as he was on the bare mud floor. The red-
headed master gaped fearfully, and rolled backwards into his
den amongst the deerskins. T. doused the glim, and all was
silent in the house at Mortana.
Walked during six hours, distance said to be three miles,
twenty-two English.
^' September Uh.—Eose from my lair at six, stepped over
Ula, and went out to reconnoitre. It looked bad, so returned
to my deerskin. Presently the family began their toilette.
" First the master kicked off the deerskins, and turned his
legs out of his box, then he scratched his head and lit a pipe,
and scratched again all over and round about, and then the
operation was ended, for he rose and went out.
" Then Ula got off the floor and scratched himself, and he
was ready.
" Then Abo and his two bed-fellows tumbled out some-
how, and yawned, and stretched, and scratched themselves all
over ; then they slipped their deerskin shirts over their heads,
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 277
and stuck knives into their girdles, and looked as fresh as if
they had washed.
" Then all hands began stuffing comagas with grass, and
I thought it time to move. In a few minutes we too had
shaken ourselves, and rolled up our beds, and were busy about
our breakfast.
" My little neighbour, the child, was now pulled out by
an old woman, and the little wretch looked so pretty with its
bright eyes and its miniature fur dress, that I gave it a lump
of sugar, and sketched it while T. boiled the kettle. At
10.30 it got a little better, so we packed up and set off.
This is a regular reindeer station. The red-haired man gets
forty dollars, and what travellers choose to give him ; he
spends the summer in catching sik and char ; and for agricul-
ture, he has a field of turnips about six yards square, at the
end of his house. He has cows, and is a half-tamed savage,
but still wild enough. He speaks Finsk and Lapp. Weparted good friends and shook hands affectionately.
" Our way now led us over stony ridges covered with
birch, and through hollows in which there were numerous
lakes. At one of these our men halted and began grubbing
in a heap of turf. I demanded an explanation, and was told
that they had bought some sik. Abo, grinning like a baboon,
with his mouth and hands full of fish, presently rose out of a
cellar made of sticks and bark, covered with sods, in which
about thirty small barrels of fish were stowed. Ula was soon
as busy as the other ; and both pronounced the fish excellent.
I tasted, it and thought it abominable, if not disgusting. There
was a boat and a pile of nets at the place, and a rude shelter
full of fish-bones, and smelling strongly of Lapps or cormo-
rants. About a mile off is another lake where there is another
278 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
estabKshment, and where our landlord has twice as many
barrels of salt fish.
" Killed three reiper on this march. My comrade was
nearly lost at one place. I was ahead looking for game ; he
was behind, and the men did not remark his absence. At last
the horses got bogged, and 1 turned to help, and found we
were a man short. All hands lit pipes and sat down, and
then we shouted in chorus. I really began to think our
friend was lost in earnest, when Fan came tearing up, full
speed. She looked in my face, wriggled her haunches, for she
had no tail to wag, and ran off again as fast as she came.
** Presently a distant shout announced the man, who came
up rather fagged. He had gone off the track into the brush
after a bird, and got fairly bewildered. He was going to try
back for the fish-hut, when he found our tracks.
" Far as the eye could reach there was not a distinguishing
feature in the landscape. Eidge followed ridge, each a re-
petition of the last ; round boulders, rounded rocks carpeted
with gray moss ; birch trees, all stunted and twisted by gales
and snows, made a labyrinth with endless lakes and green
bogs overgrown with berries. A slender track, faintly marked
at best, and continually lost, was the only evidence of human
habitation in the whole day's journey. The wind \vas cold,
and the rain threatened to return as snow, so my chuui might
have fared ill if he had not found us.
" Late in the day we came to a long downward slope, from
the top of which we could see a long way in every direction.
In front, S.E., was a wide plain with curious round hills here
and there, marks more distinct than any we have yet seen.
The air was clear, and the gray landscape looked pretty in the
evening light.
" Then we came to a long stretch of wood, in which was a
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 27t>_
stone with a mark like a footprint, about which Abo told
me a long story in a jargon of Norsk and Lapp. I could no^
understand him, so I said, Ya, ya; and on we splashed
through mire and brushwood to Suajerve.
" The moon had risen before we got in, and a sharp frost
had cleared the air. We were glad to get housed. Many
reiper were rising about us, but we could not see them. :
" At nine we got to our quarters. This place is on a
horseshoe lake, famous for fish, and belongs to a rich Finn.
He has lots of cows and sheep, and is rather a swell. Wewalked into his house, as usual, without a word ; turned the
horses loose to shift for themselves, dragged the luggage under
cover, walked up to the fire and lit our pipes.
" We were in a large room in a log-house. In one corner
was a weaving-loom and a heap of undressed deerskins. Afireplace of stone, with a kind of extinguisher of masonry for
a; tjhimney, was in another angle ; and a bench ran all round,
which served for table, seat, shelf, and everything. A loose
stool or two completed the furniture. On one of these, with
the red firelight streaming on his thoughtful face, sat the old
man ; behind him stood an old crone, with a parchment face,
churning ; and above their heads, and up the chimney, and on
it, hung festoons of half-dried sik, stockings, mittens, comagas,
and other damp gear. A door near me led to a dairy and
milk-house ; and several heaps on the floor proved, by snor-
ing, that they were alive and human. We made ourselves at
home in a few minutes, selected our own corners on the
floor, lit our candles, cooked and supped ; and we soon made
stepping-stones for dogs which prowled about amongst the
sleepers. Abo, TJk, and a fat frowsy girl, kept jawing on for
a long time ; but I could not understand Finsk, so went to
280 DENUDATION—FEOST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
" Walking during eight and a half hours;pace less than
four miles an hour.
" Killed three reiper. We are beginning to descend from
the highest ground, but there has been no marked elevation
since we left the valley near Alten.
" Septemher ^tli.—Awoke very cold at 5 ; went out and
found it snowing and blowing like mad, so turned in again
and went to sleep. Turned out again at 8, and watched
the family toilette. The master, who was a very good-looking
old fellow, emerged from behind the weaving-loom, and pro-
ceeded to read a very large Finsk Bible, which lay in a win-
dow. The old woman of the churn appeared from a heap of
skins in the same quarter. Several men and boys arose
yawning from different parts of the floor ; and the fat damsel,
who had talked so much over night, after rolling and gaping
a good deal, got up too, and proceeded to rub her hair back
with her hands, and tighten the string of her woollen petti-
coat. The deerskins were then kicked anyhow under the
bench, which disturbed the dogs, who got up and shook them-
selves ; and then we shook ourselves, packed our traps, and
aU hands made ready for breakfast.
" We had fresh sik, and they were good ; our men had
the same ; and when breakfast was over we offered them a
dram, which they refused.
" Meantime the old man had set to reading aloud from
the big Bible ; and for the first time I heard Finsk well. It
was a sonorous, grand language, full of broad vowels and soft
consonants, every second word a dactyl. I could almost
fancy it ancient Greek, with its diphthongs.
*' No one seemed to attend, or to stop from working. The
reading over, I sketched Abo, while Ula and the fat damsel
began again. I fancied I could gather the drift of this
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 281
palaver ; and I was right. On arriving, I had served out a
dram, and in the morning I had offered another ; and no-w-
it appeared that the household were teetotallers, and griev-
ously shocked. The damsel took up the talking, and told
our men their destination, and ours. The old fellow had read
us a chapter, and Ula and Abo looked like whipped school-
boys, and our hosts grave and sulky.
" By 11.30 we got under way. The hills behind
us were quite white, and snow kept falling in large single
feathery flakes; there was about an inch of snow every-
where, and the wind was very cold. I thought our men
would have a rough time of it on the way home ; but Abo
laughed, and swore he would sleep out that night rather than
face the inhabitants of Suajerve. He would as soon sleep in
a snow-wreath as a down bed, I know, so my pity was
wasted.
" The country this day was all sandhills and rocky ridges,
with lakes, burns, and gray reindeer moss, as far as the eye
could reach northwards and eastwards. There were rounded
rocks and great rounded boulders, but we were descending
slowly now ; and stunted firs showed that we were leaving
the fjeld at last. The firs got more numerous, and the
scattered birches closer together, as we got on ; and by 6
we had reached the river Muonio, opposite Karasoando.
" Tall, well-grown, long-haired men, dressed in gray woollen
jackets, loose leggings, and comagas, came over and ferried us
to Sweden from Eussia. Our horses stayed on the bank ; our
men came with us to interpret and get paid ; and so ended
our walk.
"We were actually going for 60 hours, and the distance
is said to be 28 Norsk, or about 200 English miles. The pace
and the time agree tolerably with the calculation.
282 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
" The journey may be done by an easier route. Boats can
be poled up the Alteu to the falls, and dragged for a short dis-
tance, then by 'sticking' up past Kautokeino and Mortana, a
chain of lakes with a few portages leads all the way to the
Muonio river by water."
(A similar route leads up the Tana to a chain of lake§
which communicate with the head waters of the Kemi river.
It is therefore possible to travel in a boat nearly all the way
from the North Sea, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf
of Bothnia, by several routes.
In 1851, I conversed with a man who had actually tra-
velled from sea to sea with a boat, which he and his comrades
dragged over one low neck of land, about an English mile wide.
All the portages are over low necks of land, which sepa-
rate adjoining lakes, and there is no high ground all the way,
The winter tracks follow lakes and rivers, for flat ice
makes a good road.
There are better summer horse-routes than ours ; but there
are no houses in that direction, and without a tent it was a
risk to take the bare hills so late in the year.)
*' The Tornea boats were objects of much curiosity, as we
were now to travel in them.
" The bow rises about three feet from the water, and is
very sharp ; the boat gets rapidly broader and lower, for
about live feet, to the place where the first rower sits upon
the bottom boards, and works two broad paddles. These work
in crutches made of knees, and are fastened with loops of
twisted birch root. The boat then tapers rapidly aft, and ends
in a sharp stern rising like the bow, but not so much. Close
aft sits a second rower, who works another pair of sculls
;
and right aft, in the very stern, the steersman stands up and
works a broad spade-handled paddle in a loop of birch root.
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 283
" For working up stream there are light fir-poles which are
used by three men, or two, or one ; all pushing on one side
and keeping stroke.
. "The length of a boat maybe thirty feet, the greatest
width about five, and all of them were furnished with Swedish
'lysters' for spearing salmon, and an iron grate for holding a
fire of logs and birch bark over the bow.
" The river was about as broad as the Thames at Eich-
mond, with a good stream of deep clear water, which pro-
mised well for rapids on the journey of 300 miles which lay
between us and the sea.
" We w^ere now fairly in a country where signs alone were
of use, and I do not know that I ever found myself in such a
condition, and without an interpreter. Spanish, Portuguese,
Italian, and French, are all so like Latin or each other;
German, Danish, Norsk, and Swedish, are so like broad
Scotch, that from the first, words can be recognised, and the
drift of a conversation guessed ; but here the only language
was Finsk, which bears no likeness to any I had then heard,
so we were posed. Many a hearty laugh we had and caused
before evening. At last w^e caught an old woman who, under
our inspection, plucked some of our game, and boiled it in a
large iron pot half full of new potatoes. About 8 came a
man who had been working all day at his farm, and who
spoke some Swedish; and through him we got on famously.
" The r,iver banks are low and sandy, covered with stunted
forest, except wliere the land has been cleared for farming.
The crops, chiefly barley, were being carried home. The
sheaves were hung upon tall racks made of fir-trees, and the
ears were turned to the sun.
" The night was frosty and beautifully clear."
(The coast of Greenland, on the opposite shores of the
284 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
Atlantic, in the same latitude, is still a blank on the latest
maps. On the one side are farms ; on the other, mountains of
ice. There must be a cause for such a difference.)
*^Saturday, 8th.—Our intention being to get to Muonioniska,
rose early and started at 6. The morning was magnificent,
but very cold ; stubble, sand, corn, trees, everything was
glittering in the sunshine, as if powdered with diamonds ; and
the pools were covered with ice a quarter of an inch thick.
" Our boat was manned by three large sturdy men, dressed
in blue woollen, with mittens to keep their fingers warm ; and
we seated ourselves upon our traps in the middle of the boat,
wrapped in plaids and great-coats, with guns ready for pot-
shooting.
" We could not talk to our men, so we gave them some
baccy and grinned, and talked to each other," (and our subject
of conversation was ice and glaciers. I had been striving to
persuade my comrade that all the rocks of the country bore
marks of ice, and' he was sceptical. I was trying to make
what I had just seen agree with the appearance of Swiss rocks,
and with the work of Swiss glaciers, and I could not. The
big glacier tracts of Iceland, of which I then knew nothing,
and the local systems of Southern Norway, which I had not
then seen, would have helped the argument.)
" The river for some ten miles or so was unchanged. There
were low banks, low islands, firs and birches, and here and
there a slight stream, unworthy of the name of rapid.
" Our men pulled well and fast, changing now and then,
till we reached a station, where we landed. We were to
change boat and crew, but knew nothing about our fate for
want of a tongue. I had managed to learn to ask for milk,
and to count ; so we got a drink, paid our men, and at
10.30 started, shouting " Huaste, " good-bye. Our new
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA— OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 285
steersman was a very fine man, six feet high at least—
a
straight-limbed fellow as one could wish to see ; he was quiet
and grave, and reminded me strongly of an old Scot.
" Half the viUage—well-dressed comfortable folk—came
down to see us go, and shouted 'huaste' in chorus.
" No one had warned us of what we were now coming to.
The broad placid stream which we had been following chauged
all at once, and in a few minutes we were in a Tornea rapid.
" The banks changed their character also, and for some
miles there was a constant succession of rocks, and pools, and
whirling eddies, that seemed made for fishing.
" Our men seemed to know what they were about so well
that there was no reason to fear shipwreck ; but to pass some
of the places which we now whisked through without good
boatmen would be certain destruction.
" Our first leap was down a regular waterfall, about four
feet high; and then, shooting down at railway speed—the men
pulling like racers—we had to thread our way amongst large
stones, breakers, and whirling pools that looked impassable.
Our quiet steersman was a study. His face lighted up with
the excitement ; his eyes glared and sparkled ; his long hair
floated backward ; his mouth opened slightly ; and then his
lips were compressed, and the teeth set, when he had taken
his line and meant to keep it. He plied his paddle with
strength and skill, and every attitude showed off his well-knit
frame. The others worked hard and silently, watching the
steerer's eye, and ready to help him at the slightest sign. It
was evidently no child's play, and they were no children. I
sketched the steersman in one place, and we agreed that we
were safe in his hands ; so we smoked our pipes and held our
tongues to give the men fair play. I
" That rapid alone was worth the journey.
286 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
" That night we were obliged to stop short of our point, for
night fell, and we could not shoot rapids in the dark.*
Fig. 00. Eibik Erikson, Ratama. Sketched
"The character of the river-banks to-day was not picturesque.
The country was low, and covered with forests of birch and
fir, that seemed endless. There were rocks occasionally, and
gray moss seemed the covering of the ground. The river-bed
between the rapids was generally sandy, with large boulders
here and there. In the rapids the ground is a pile of enormous
stones all rounded ; they are ten or twelve feet in diameter,
* For brevity, a night with the Russian.s is here cut out.
NOETHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 287
and at times much more. They are about the size of hay-ricks
and hay-cocks in a hay-field ; and they are like those which are
scattered about on the fjeld. These rise high, or barely reach
the surface, betraying their position in the stream by a curl on
the water ; or they lie out of sight, and barely raise a wave.
" The steersman has to avoid them all, while the boat is
kept going ' hard all' down a rapid stream, so as to keep steerage
way.
" I calculated that we had gone about fifty miles in the
twelve hours.
" Se2:)temler 9th.—Eose at 6, and found a white world ; snow
a foot deep, and more falling ; wind blowing hard, and a very
uninviting temperature, * * *
" After breakfast our host smoked his pipe and read his
Finsk Bible ; and his wife, having put the house in order, and
having actually washed the dishes, sat down beside her
husband. There was an air of Sunday quiet about them all
that put me strongly in mind of the Highlands ; and their
marked features, brown faces, and bony hands, their coarse
woollen garments and long hair, called up visions of cove-
nanters as painters love to depict them.
"At 11 it got finer, so we started, wrapped in all the
clothes we could muster.
" It was soon evideiit why our men would not go on in
the dark. Eapids were bad and numerous. The first came
at 11.38, and was succeeded by a magnificent pool. The
second came at 12, with a still finer pool below it. A third
was reached at 12,15, which we got down in ten minutes. I
should think it was two English miles long, and it was very-
dangerous, though not so beautiful as yesterday's rapids.
Looking back from below, the river seemed a mass of broken
white water amongst a steep pile of rounded stones.
288 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
" Then came a long stretcli of broad still water, to a place
called (I think) Oolicola Muonio ; and then we came to
Muonioniska itself.
" This town is half in Russia, half in Sweden ; contains a
church, a merchant's house, and a lot of excellent -wooden
houses. It is less a town than a cluster of detached farm-
houses, each with farm-steading, corn-rack, and offices. The
better sort are painted red, the rest are gray from the weather-
ing of the bare wood.
" Here we were hospitably entertained by the merchant's
wife, who, amongst her numerous merits, was able to under-
stand my bad Norsk.
" The outer door was open, and no one visible. I walked
in, took off my battered hat, and knocked modestly at the
first door I could see. A pretty, well-dressed woman, with a
child in her arms, came out, and looked for an explanation.
"Tru Fostrom?' said I, looking insinuating. 'Ya,' said
the lady. ' Herr Eout told me to ask if I might sleep a night
at your house.' 'Why not?' quoth the lady ; and in a very
short time we were in a house where we could sleep like
princes on down beds instead of the floor.
"Where else but in the north would people stand such
proceedings ? Two queer-looking, travel-stained, unkempt,
unintelligible foreigners ask for lodgings, at the house of the
topping lady of the place, and the answer is ' Why not V" Sejyteinher 10th.—Eose early from the first beds we have
slept in for ten days ; had a famous breakfast ; left a lot of
flies for Forstrom, and departed.
" Our new crew of three had to break their way through ice,
in a creek below the house. They were engaged to take us all
the way to Tornea; and one spoke a little English, which
was truly English in kind. With them came a hard-featured,
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 289
sharp-looking fellow, who was to steer us down the famous
Aiomboika Foss. He is supposed to be the only man that
can do it, and receives a tax of about two shillings English
for conducting boats that require his services. It is possible
t(j walk, but we wanted to see the fun. The morning had
been very fine, but by 1.3U P.M., when we started, the hills
had vanished in mist, and there was a drizzling rain, which
promised to get worse, and kept its word. As soon as we
were seated the men shoved off, and, after a little splashing
in ice, we got to the open river. The new boat was like the
last, but rough fir-boards were fastened to the sides to resist
the heavy water.
" The famous steersman, looking placid, chewed a quid,
and took his place and the paddle, without taking off his
mittens. Behind him, peering over his shoulder, was
the youngest of our crew. The old bird was teaching the
young idea how to shoot the rapids. At first our progress
was much the same as before—tlie men i)ulled hard, and tlie
boat went fast ; our steerer chewed his quid, and guided the
boat with the skill of a London cabman in a crowd. ]
sliould have thought tM-ice about steering even tliere, but
it was evident that we were only at the beginning. The
banks grew wilder, and rocks here and there replaced the
rounded boulders which had hitherto been the principal
feature of the river-bed. Presently our friend began to
roll his eyes, and gi'ip the spade-handle of his steering-
paddle ; and the roar of the water ahead told of something
coming.
" I raised my head to look, and was ordered to lie down,
and not hide the view ; so down I went, but I could still see
that we Avere rushing, end on, at a ridge of black stones that
reached half over the river, and that the whole of the stream
u
290 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
was dancing and tossing like a mill-race past the end of tlie
bank. There was broken water, bke a heavy surf, right up
to a steep broken rock on the Swedish side. We seemed to
be rushing to certain destruction ; but just as we seemed to
be rushing into tlie race, a turn of tlie wrist cleared the outer-
most boulder by a few inches, and we shot round a corner
into a splendid pool. It was done with the most perfect neat-
ness and composure ; but a few inches one way or the other
would have given us a hard swim.
" The steerer now seemed to explain to his pupil all about
this point, and how to pass it ; and then he condescended to
take off his mittens.
" The next shoot he had to go further into the stream.
We were drenched, the boat was half filled with water, and
then, as there was worse to come, we rowed to the Eussian
bank, and baled and shook our feathers.
" I never have seen such glorious pools for fishing, and
I cannot fancy better sport than to hook big fish in such
noble water ; but if salmon will take here, he wdio takes
them must be provided with good tackle, and know how to
use it.*
" We had not much time to look about us. The river had
gathered force and speed for the last six miles, and here it
made a final leap. The river-bed made a bend below us, and
the whole body of water dashed with a roar like thunder right
against a perpendicular rock, some twenty or thirty feet higli.
There were bad stones on the shallow side ; it seemed quite
impracticable. Our pilot only grasped his paddle the tighter,
and set his teeth, and off we went. It was grand, but some-
what terrible, to feel the frail boat whirl round as we entered
* Miu:li ri|,'aiiist my will, I have liceii diivfii to lidieve that Bothnia salmon
will not take tlie l!y.
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 21)1
the stream ; but it was worse when we got fairly into it, and
dashed at the wall of rock. We were covered with spray in
an instant. No one spoke, and no one could have heard for
the noise. On we rushed over the waves, nearer and nearer,
faster and faster towards the bank—the high bow slapping
hard into the waves ; but skill and coolness were at the
helm. An eddy seemed to throw us bodily off from the rock
into the tail of the stream, and the steersman knew all about
it. The old boat writhed and cracked from stem to stern,
and pitched headlong into the waves, till I thought she must
part or founder. The man in the bow was nearly upset
by a wave, which jumped on his back ; and he nearly cut
a crab ; but the pilot was v/orking his paddle with might
and main, and we shot into a great boiling black pool
safe, but well ducked. I know nothing grander than such
a torrent, unless it be the rolling Atlantic, and nothing gives
me such an idea of irresistible force as Atlantic waves after
a storm.
" The rest of the rapid was bad enough, but all hands
seemed to think it child's j)lay. I would have stared at the
notion of shooting down such a place a month ago ; now w^e
thought uotliing of it.
" We made the last shoot at 2.45. We had made about seven
miles in less than an hour, including stoppages to bale.
" I paid the river guardian, shook his hand heartily, and,
with a volley of ' huastes,' we parted.
" It was cold, wet, and miserable ; but our men pulled well,
and we chatted merrily as we glided down a smooth stream.
My comrade had shot the rapids of the Nile, and declared
that these M-ere as fine, and that the smallness of our boat
made them seem much finer. I don't know what I might
think of the stream from the shore, but from our boat I
292 DENUDATION—FKOST-MAIJKS—LAND-ICE.
tlionglit it magnificent, and I was glad that I Lad come to see
tlie Tornea, for I thought I had found out new tishing-
quarters.
" For tlie rest of this day's journey there was little variety
;
the river was wide and smooth, the hanks low and covered
with forest, unless cleared for a farm.
'' September lltli.—The country much the same. At 2,
the sun being hot and the day fine, we determined to dine on
the bank ; so, sending a man for some milk and potatoes, we
spread a towel on a flat boulder, and fished out all our stores.
We had cold boiled dun-diver, barley-cakes, and ruin ; butter
in an old tin pot, pepper, and salt. Potatoes came soon, all
hot, and bursting from their jackets, and delicious milk
arrived in a great silver goblet. "We stared, and fell to dis-
cussing the natives. They are dirty, and never seem to go to
lied ; they have plenty to cat, and seem to be sober and
industrious ; they have silver spoons and forks, and silver
tankards, corn and cattle, and good dwellings ; and so we
determined to inspect this farm in Russian Lapland—this
palace of the silver vase. Having washed our own tin cans
and cracked tea-cups, we scaled the river-bank, and walked
up to a log-house. (See woodcut, p. 297.)
" Tlie farm-yard was full of people. Half-way up the corn-
rack were sundrywomen and girls hanging up sheaves of yellow
corn, v.'hich a long-haired boy had just brought in from the
field (in a rough sledge, drawn by a young bull. A woman
was standing in a doorway looking on, and two or three men
of tlie very wildest and dirtiest exterior were grouped about
smoking.
" One of these might liave stood l\)r a portrait of ugliness.
He was a smith, sliort and l)rawn\-, with bandy legs lialf-lii«l
by a leathern apron, and feet that looked gigantic in well-
NOllTHERX SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTE>L 203
stuffed comagas. His arms were bare, and folded on his
breast. His head was enormous, his hair a flaming red, eight
or nine inches long, and it stood out on end like the sun's
rays on a sign-post. His eyes glittered under shaggy red eye-
brows, and his grimy unshaven face made him look like a fiend
in a pantomime. 1 made liim a bow, and a speech in Norsk;
ai\d we were staring at each other, when tlie boy came breath-
less from tlie field exclaiming in Finsk."
"A fine fat reindeer stag came trotting familiarly after
him, and the white bull with a sledge-load of barley followed.
The natives seemed to be as much astonished as we were. The
smith seized the deer by the honi, and felt his ribs as a
butcher feels a calf Tlie deer submitted quietly, but pre-
sently he gave a loud sneeze, broke through our circle, and
trotted off to rub noses with the bull. All hands now began
to chatter at once, hands were laid upon knives, and I rather
wished that I had met the deer where I could have had a quiet
chance at him myself. But the beast took a new freak, tossed
liis head, sneezed again, and went off at a long trot round a
corner into the forest whence he came. He Avas the only
tame deer I saw in Lapland this time. He was lower than a
stag, with sturdy legs, and a long compact body ; he was fat
as butter, and his horns nearly full grown, with the velvet
still on.
" I shall not easily forget that group. The red smith hold-
ing the deer's horn and a long knife, the white bull and the
yellow corn, some black dogs, a lot of girls with keen eyes
glancing down from the rack, and the dark pine forest and
blue sky behind.
" We rowed on till night. The river-ljanks the same,
low and covered with birch, fir, and gray moss ; few pools,
and no rapids. At our halting-place we joined the true
294 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
Toniea, which comes from the west, and is hirger tliaii oui'
branch.
" September 12(h.—Cokl Tried hard for a sahiion in a mag-
nificent pooL None would come. Stayed all day at a farm-
house, drying clothes and cultivating the natives.
" Se])fember 1-ith.—Passed a range of rounded hills feathered
to the top with fir and birch forest. There were fine pools
aud some slight rapids here. At twelve we reached Gatilo-
goski rapid. It is magnificent. The throat of the pool is
very rocky, narrow, and deep. I could have thrown a stone
over it. In the middle the river gets wider, aud the boat
shoots into glorious boiling pools, with still casts made for
salmon. Near the tail the river divides. The smaller branch
takes a leap of ten or twelve feet ; the main stream thunders
down with a terrific roar, and in the middle rises in waves
ten feet high at least. Our boat slipped down near the side,
scraping salmon stages from which the Finns spear great num-
bers of running fish. We got down safe and sound, but well
drenched as usual. At 1.50 we landed the pilot of the rapid,
and I tried a cast for a salmon, but in vain. From this rapid
the river is smooth and broad for a long way.
" September 15th.—The river is like a great lake three miles
wide. At 10.30 we reached Matagoski, the last and largest
rapid. The whole river, which had a good stream where
three miles wide, pours, with the speed of a mill-race, through
a gap in a rock-step 300 yards wide. The throat of the i)Ool
is like the escape of the Ness from Loch Ness, but everything
about it is magnified except the hills. It was frightful to
look back at some of the places we passed. The rapid is
about five miles long. About as much water as flows past
Bonn runs like a nn'll-race most of the way, amongst boulders
of the usual pattern.
NOllTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 295
" The steersman was very old, and sent us slap over one big
stone, but we slid quietly into the river on the other side, and
were none the worse. That night we got to Haparanda, close
to the Gulf of Bothnia, and found ourselves at the end of a
road which leads to Stockholm. The cost of boat and three
men for five days, drink-money and all, was sixty-five
rix-dollars. How long it took them to get back T know
not."
The country, then, from the fjeld to the Gulf, is a series
of broad flats and short steep declivities ; and these last seem
to consist of worn rock and boulders of very large size. By
the time Haparanda was reached, I had formed the idea that
the Gulf itself was the bed of an old glacier.
" Scptemler l7th.—Bought an old trap like a gig ; and,
next day, 18th, set off to post to Sundsvall. There is a
journal of the whole trip, but the following extracts will
suffice :
—
" Calix Elv. Eoad good, country flat, birch and pine
forests growing in sand, amongst enormous boulders. Here
and there are polished surfaces, with striae marking tlie
course of the glaciers, which did it all."
" 20th.—Crossed the Lulea."
" 21sL—First part of the way over a sandy countiy,
strewed with boulders, with a tree here and there. Pass
Pitea."
"22d.—Start 7.45. Eoad through pretty forest scenery
with hills and lakes, the latter full of ducks;passed a good
river. At 10.30 came to Burea, a pretty little salmon stream.
The stone moss all through this country is quite beautiful
;
one sort especially. It grows in curved wave-like forms,
which spread from a centre like waves from a stone tln-own
into still water. Each circle as it widens is beautifully
296 liENUDATIoX—FItOST-MAlIKS—LAND-ICE.
shaded from white to dark brown. The woods are carpeted
with numerous berries—red, lilack, and blue, strawberry,
lingon, blaelierry, and muUiljcrry in the soft ground. The
tables of rock are constant, and so are the wandering masses
which have been left there by some ancient glacier at a
former period of the world.
" The striffi on these tables are strongly marked. Here the
direction is S.E. by S., and on consulting the map and com-
jiaring my observations all along this journey, I find the
striic nearly parallel to the course of the rivers.
" Halted at Gumboda.
" Monday, 2-Uh.—Crossed the Umea.
" Tuesday, 25th.—Here the strire are nearly north and
south. They do not run parallel to the river, but point
across it at an angle of 45°.
"Friday, 28th.—Arrive at Sundsvall."
This drive was about 320 English miles, the boat tri])
from Muonioniska was above 200 ; so this part of the trip
(iost two men about £9 each for travelling post more than
700 miles, and for living and lodging during nineteen
days.
At Sundsvall we reached the end of tlie load, \\liicli was
taken as the southern Ijoundary of this northern lilock of tlu'
Scandinavian peninsida.
Here we took the steamer for Stockliolni. We sailed witli
a ]iarty of students returning to Upsala, and we used to land
at night when the steamer stopped, and marcli arm in arm
lhr(.)Ugh the foirst, singing choruses, in procession. Ki'om
Stockholm went to Noikoping to visit a friend, crossed
Soutlieni Sweden llirough the ( ;otlia('anal, and got back to
(;otliel)oi'g on the 2'M of October, having travelletl in three
months round Scaiidiiia\ia for the first time.
NORTHKUN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTE^L 297
" On the 2r)th arrived at Copenhagen, and started for
Wismar. Got back to London November 2d, having started
Julv 1st."
Fio. 47, p. 202. A STILL REACH ON THE ToRNEA, lookiiig X.W. Oct. 14, l.«40 Dintier
CHAPTER XX.
DENUDATION 12—FKOST-MARKS 10—LAND-ICE 9— OLD LOCAL
SYSTEM 4.—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA 2.
The tract described in the last cliapter teaches that the
watershed, about Lat. 70° N., from which fi\'e great rivers
part, is ice-groimd and strewed with wandering stones.
These are packed in mounds and long ridges or plains, fill
rock-basins, and are scattered broadcast over the land, as
perched blocks. The cliffs of the Norwegian coast give a
section of the rocks, and show that the surface form of the
watershed results not from upheaval in the centre, but
from some wearing action. The surface generally bears no
relation to dip and fracture.
The Alten, Tana, Tyaljok, Kemi, and Tornea, rise close
together ; a section drawn south from sea to sea would give a
low rounded curve "—s, four degrees of latitude long, and less
than 2000 feet high.
This estimate, made from a knowledge of three of the
rivers named, is confirmed by Von J>uch, who used a barometer,
and makes the greatest height about 1500 feet.
According to measurements given in Murray's Haudhoolc
for JVoiihern Etirope (part i., route 34, p. 243, 1848), the alti-
tudes are—Kautokeino, 834 feet ; Jedeckejaure, 1378. The
watershed (if this be correct) is less than 1400 feet, and
further east the isthmus is known to be still lower.
With Swiss glaciers uppermost in the mental picture-
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OIJ) LOCAL SYSTEM. 2'J9
gallery, the first impression left was that land-ice had followed
the course of the Scandinavian rivers, and that the Gulf of
Bothnia was the estuary in Mdiich the eastern side of the sys-
tem combined to form one great land-glacier, which filled the
Baltic. This theory assumed a state of things which exists
nowhere in the world, and it was soon abandoned as un-
tenable.
A very full and very amusing account of the country in
summer was published by a French lady,* who accompanied
her husband to Spitzbergen with the French scientific ex-
ploring expedition. This party took high ground to the right
as far as Kautokeiuo. The fjeld was
—
"Semee de pierres, petites polies de forme spherique,"
which, as the lady says, " avaient ete roulees par les eaux."
The high fjeld is "une plaine pierreuse." "La Laponie n'a
que deux aspects ; les plaines pierreuses et les plaines
boueuses." " Ce pays a du etre temoin d'etranges bouleverse-
ments de cataclysms violent ; car nous rencontrions souvent
des monceaux de pierres rondes et blanches comme des oefs
monstreux ; c'etaient evidement les galets gigantesque de
quelque torrent diluvien. Ces pierres avait souvent la circon-
ference d'une roue de voiture;quelle force avait il fallu pour
les polir comme des boules de marbre !" (p. 233). This carries
the boulders far higher than the watershed of the isthmus.
No one who knows this tract can read the French lady's
account of it without admiring the accuracy of her description,
and the determination which carried a woman through such a
country in such weather.
It is plain that ice had something to do with this denuda-
tion of rock and deposition of stones upon the watershed of
* Voyage d'une Femine nu Spitzherg, par Mmo. Leonie d'Aiinet. Paris,
1854.
300 DKNI'DATION'—FRi )ST-MAI;K>S—LAND-ICE.
Lapland. It irmains to be seen wliether land or sea ice did
most of the work.
At Easter, 1850, walked round the Land's End of England
with a knapsack and sketch-Look.
In June, set off for the Baltic to try for salmon in llio
Swedish rivers. Steamed to Christiania, and thence south to
Gothebor".*
^1 lltfi ^1 c
FiCi. 48. Vai.i.kv or thk Gotiia, Inokiii- abdiit iioilli I', .'list. .Inly 14, 1.S4H.
"The entrance is a wild place. There are thousands of
rocky islands all alike ; and when the shore is reached the
hills an^ of the ^(•ry same sliaiic as the islanil.'^.
"• Instead of a l)hu' ,'<(\i, hollows between tlu' rounded rocky
' F,ir ilrscriptidiis of this ((.unlrv sec licl.iw, clniu. ,xxi.
NoKTIIKUN HCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 301
hills coiitiiiu tlat plains of bouklGrs, clay, and sand, upon
wliicli a sea of ii^reeii corn now -waves. Passed through the
canal for the second time ; sketching.
"Trollhattan is described above (p. 104). It is a large
water- slide, and rocks beside it are striated. Large lakes,
through which the steamer passes, are full of great stones;
some of A\iiich are balanced i;pon the backs of rocks, and rise
above water ; others are piled in heaps, which form circular
islands, long mounds, and long shallow channels, through
which the steamer is guided by poles stuck up for beacons.
" The Wenern Lake is the third largest in Europe, and it
is not picturesque in any way. But, nevertheless, a number
of sketches were made in passing.
"At Sijderkoping, where the canal gets to the Baltic, is
an establishment for the cold-water cure. Xear the town
is a high rock, overgrown as usual with firs, and carpeted with
fine grassy turf. Here, according to the captain, patients are
sent to take air-baths in the dress of our first parents. ' The
country people at first thought it was the old devil, but now
they have got used to it.'"
The glacial period then has passed away from this part
of Sweden, but all the rocks seen were of ice-ground foims,
and land-glaciers will not account for them.
Any good map will show that all the chief rock-basins and
rock-grooves in Sweden, between lat. C0° and 5G° N. ; all the
chief lakes, and chains of lakes, and most of the large rivers,
and main roads (which are made in hollows), point N.E. and
N.N.E., up into the Baltic ; and at the isthmus wliich cuts
the Baltic from the polar basin. Nothing here points at the
hills.
The shape of the Baltic ; its coast-forms—fjords and islands
—are copies of the lakes. There are the same rocks, the
302 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
same circular islands, the same low hills, fading away into a
blue sea ; in which the same reeds fringe a tideless coast. The
map shows the same physical geography. The shapes of
Gottland and Oland are like the Wenern and Wettern lakes;
the main coast -lines from Stockholm to Carlskrona cut
meridians diagonally, as the lakes do. These lines have
reference not to the hills, but to the coast (p. 232).
At Stockholm oaks flourish on ice-ground rocks ; and
porphyry boulders from Elfdal are set up as polished vases in
a beautiful park, with gardens and green grass ; ice-grooves
abound, and do not point at the nearest liiUs.
The coast up to Uniea is a copy of the coast below Stock-
holm ; it has the same appearance, and the same trend. Manyislands in the gulf are piles of boulders, half in half out
of water ; and all the rocks, without exception, are like low
islands on the opposite Norwegian coast, which are all of one
pattern .-—s.
From Umea went some distance up the river to fish.
Caught no salmon, but saw plenty caught in traps. Found
the same kind of country so far—low rocks covered with
pines, long ridges following the coast-line. Where these cross
the river there is a foss;generally at the low end of a lake,
or of a long reach of still water. The lakes in this tract all
point at the hills, but there are few ridges of high land which
run parallel to these streams and canals. This part of Sweden
is like a vast amphitheatre, with streams pouring down its
broad steps. There are two distinct forms of denudation.
A geological map of Europe makes the Scandinavian
peninsula consist chiefly of old stratified rocks, gneiss, etc.,
which dip N. and N.W. under newer beds, which thus form
the high grounds. Hills, hollows, and steps, which charac-
terise the Swedish side, coincide generally with the strike.
XORTHEEN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEiL 303
Two books laid flat on a table may represent a geological
series. Their pages coincide while they are flat. If one,
with a map of Xorway in the middle, is tilted and sloped
towards tlie north-west, the disturbed volume represents an
upheaved series and a big fault. In order to get to the map,
and express the shape of Sweden, the solid angle of the
sloping book must be cut or rasped, or carved away. If this
be done, the worn edges of the leaves w^ill coincide with the
chief hills and coast-lines, and with the strike. The paper
destroyed represents the amount of denudation ; and Scandina-
vian drift, in like manner, represents destruction of rock-beds
in Scandinavia, or elsewhere. It is not river-work. If it were,
the river-courses would be expressed by filing notches with a
triangular file, and the river-banks would everywhere give
sections from page 1 to the lowest page, which they do not.
On the 2otli of July, crossed the Gulf to Wasa in Fin-
land.
" The countr}^ and the people on the Eussian side seem to
be identical with Sweden and Swedes. Lakes, trees, rocks,
and large wandering stones characterise both sides, and the
dress and language are the same. Met a girl riding man-
fashion upon a bare-backed horse, her hair streaming out
behind her from under a black silk handkerchief. Took her
for a Tartar or Cossack, for she was riding furiously in a cloud
of dust. Shouted at her to stop, but she only grinned, and
rode all the faster, trying to look shy as she passed.
" Could not find strife that indicated the direction in which
ice had last moved over these rocks. But the grinding-
engine did not seem to have moved from the opposite
mountains of Scandinavia. (See woodcut, p. 322.)
Eeturned to Umea, and steamed to Lulea ; from which
town set off for Jockmok, and Quickjok, and the fjeld, armed
304 r)ENUDATI()X^Fi;OST-:^IAI!KiS—LAXD-ICK.
with rod, guii, and sketcli-ljook. It was a queer .solitary life,
but good fun.
"Oue inoruing I was roused by many voices, and found a
wliole bevy of lumberers round my iisliing-rod. Some of them
I had seen before, and they were now going down the river
with a float of tar-barrels, so 1 saluted them politely, and in
live minutes my acquaintance and half a dozen more walked
into the room where I had been sleeping on the boards, and
began to stare like startled wild beasts. They were soon
tamed, and proposed to accompany me to the river to see the
rod work. As I caught nothing, said 1 was going to bathe.
]\[y friends said it would be highly diverting to see the
gentleman swim. I begged them to retire, and promised to
gratify their wish forthwith, and thereupon the whole lot sat
down on a log at a little distance, and modestly turned their
faces the other way, while I disrobed.
"When ready, I gave a great yell, and took an Eton
header off a big stone ; kicked up my heels, and swam in
every odd way I could think of, till I had enough. Whendried and dressed again, the spokesman advanced and made
a neat little speech, thanking me for the pleasure I hud
given them by the performance. Then they took up their
gear and departed, and I packed up my goods and jolted olf
in a cart through a sandy track in the forest.
" Another day, while sitting alone at the door of a sleeping-
tent on the beach of a river, a dozen of those fellows—each
with a great lever on his shoulder, wild, long-haired, and pictu-
resque, sprang from a boat, marched up, and crowded rcmnd
me, staring in my face as if I had been a stuffed curiosity set
up for their inspection. After chattering and peering about
and touching everything, tluy departed, saying that Englishmen
had ' flora saker mitche pengar,' many goods and much cash.
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 305
" Anotlier night we camped in an island in the Lulea.
" It was a large heap of rolled stones with fir trees on the
top, and a low flat spit of gi-een grassy land, running out on
the sheltered side of the mound (down stream). Among the
trees was a large ant-hill. The men cut themselves a shelter
of pine branches, and lit a fire. I made a bed of pine boughs,
and spread a waterproof sheet over some arched wands for a
roof. There was no real night, and the air was not cold. Mycrew had to flit, for they had camped in a highroad which
the ants had made, to get at a rotten willow trunk which lay
mouldering on the spit of grass land. In the morning there
were dozens of them standing on a coat which was left in
the path. They were poking about in gi-eat wonder and
seeming anger, feeling and flourishing their antenna^, and
rearing, as if they wanted to find and fight the monster who
had blocked up the road to their woodyard. The men had a
colony in their clothes when we embarked."
The first portage on this river is at Eabak.
" Here I found a little, clean, rosy-faced, light-haired Lapp,
with an older fellow in leather trousers, who was seated on a
keg, amidst ropes and raft gear of sorts. I liked their looks,
so opened negotiations as to entering my service. To look
dignified, I took my seat on the keg, and they sat cross-legged
on the ground in front. They seemed to take time to consider,
so I took time, and smoked gravely during pauses. It cost
no small effort to keep from laughing ; but the upshot was,
that Marcus Stenman engaged to follow me anywhere for a
rixdoUar per day, and the other helped to row as far as he was
going for about a penny an English mile."
With a man of all work who spoke Swedish and Lapp,
knew the whole river, and had travelled with an English
sportsman before, the way was easy.
X
306 DENUDATION—FROST-MAltKS—LAND-ICE.
Above this first portage, the country is characteristic of
Sweden.
" The river at first was very broad ; the hills highish,
rounded, and covered with forest, which sloped evenly down
to the river-bank. There the trees sloped over, till many lay
flat on the water, dead and dying. Many islands in the river
were covered with similar forest. The breadth varied from
three English miles, to four hundred yards. Passed lots of
boats, and some large rafts of wood and tar-barrels floating
down to the sea. The men wdio managed it had a fire, and
some were sleeping about it, while others guided the float."
At the portages, the barrels are rolled overland, planks are
hauled, and the raft is re-made below each foss.
The Umea, Lulea, Tornea, and Kemi, and most of the
rivers which enter the Gulf in this region, have portages at
nearly equal distances from the coast ; and the rapids are
alilve. They are all water-slides, like Trollhattan. At a height
which nearly corresponds to the upper water-level of these
first falls, the river-banks are often flat-topped terraces of
boulders and clay, which, like those at Alten and Mora, rest
on ice-ground rocks. On the Umea river these terraces are
conspicuous features in sketches made on the spot, and never
retouched. At Bratby, Pengforss, Fellforss, Norreforss, and
elsewhere, these terraces of drift are conspicuous ; and when
the river is left, the top of the terrace becomes a wide forest
plain, bounded by low rocky hills.
In like manner, three of these large rivers, and probably
many others, have a second water-slide about the same dis-
tance above the first ; and the falls are about equal, and of
one pattern.
The second portage on the Lulea is at Laxholmen, and it
is a beautiful place.
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 307
^^ August 4:th, 1850.—After a swim in the river, returned
to the house, and waited till 12 in hopes of breakfast
;
being very hungry, but too blate to ask my host for food. Lit
the pipe of resignation, and sat on the door-step reading and
writing ; while the master, without his coat, sat on the grass
with his wife and children, playing with the little ones. It
was more like Italy than Lappland close to the Arctic Circle.
Despairing of food, shouldered my sketching gear, and walked
to the upper foss.
" The river-bank is a pile of enormous boulders, and the
bed of the river seemed to be full of them. They could be seen
through the bright clear deep water, and rows of them broke
the surface into tiny waves. Where the main stream came
down, it thundered and roared ; but it was only an exaggeration
of a Highland burn tumbling over a gravel-heap. Firs and
birches, and a picturesque salmon-trap, made a beautiful
picture. While sketching busily, crouched amongst the
stones, a couple of fishing hawks came sailing up stream. One
of them pounced on a large sik, and flew with it to the shore.
On seeing me, he dropped the fish within ten yards ; and I
took possession of the prize still alive. The mosquitoes were
biting like mad all the time. About 7, saw the salmon-
traps lifted, and about twenty large fish, from forty to sixteen
pounds, taken out. There is a beautiful pool just under the
cruive ; so I returned home through the forest in great hopes
of sport. If I fail again, I shall give up Swedish salmon as
incorrigible.
" 5th.—Kaining in the morning ; at 8, started ; and by
9 had three trout (one, three, four pounds) and a great lot
of large greyling. Eaised one large fish that might possibly
be a salmon. While eating a breakfast, caught and cooked on
the spot, the salmon-fishers came and drew their trap. There
308 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
were twenty enormous clean salmon, some of which had just
entered the basket ; they were fresh and active, while the
others were dead or half drowned by the stream. They must
have passed under my fly. It was a day made for fishing;
and I am no greenhorn at this work. It seems to be true
that Swedish salmon will not rise to the fly ; but it is a
curious fact in natural history that had to be proved. After
breakfast, the sun came out ; so put on a cast of small flies,
and killed fifty greyling in an hour and a half. My host
came down, and I treated him to fresh fish in return for a cold
salmon's head, which he gave me for dinner yesterday. Walked
down to the island, got a boat, and killed a lot of large grey-
ling ; hauled them out two, sometimes three at a time ; but
no salmon would look at any fly. Walked wp to the pool
again, and had a pipe and a brew of coffee, and fished my best
with salmon-flies made by the best artist in London. Left
my rod and went back to sleep at the house, having killed a
hundred and eleven greyling and four trout, weighing sixty-
five pounds.
" 6ih.—Worked the pools all day with every dodge I knew.
Had two rods in a boat ; one spinning a small fish while
the boat rowed backwards and forwards, dropping slowly
down ; the other casting. No salmon would take anything,
but everything took greyling. They managed to hook them-
selves on the largest salmon-fly, and even on spinning tackle
with a small greyling on it for bait.
" The average daily take of salmon now is about forty fish
;
and the smallest I have seen was sixteen pounds ; many were
over forty pounds, bright as silver, and beautiful for shape
and colour. They are boiled, packed in kegs, and sent off to
the coast."
(Tliis warm sunny spot is a contrast to the coast of Green-
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 300
land in the same latitude ; but the rocks upon which washed
boulders are piled beside this river are all ice-ground.)
" Above this foss is a long reach of still water ; beyond
that a long portage, over which it pleased Marcus that we
should walk. From Wuolderim we walked five English miles
to Payarim with a couple of porters, one of whom was a very
pretty girl. From Payarim, walked eleven miles to Wartsatis.
The baggage train on this stage was a white bull led by an
old woman in a red cap, green petticoat, and boots, with
a load strapped on her shoulders ; a boy in leather leggings
followed to beat the white bull ; and I brought up the rear
laughing at their strange figures, winding through the forest,
and stumbling over branches and stumps.
In this walk we got pretty high at one place, and found
boulders and sand on ice-ground rock, with forest everywhere.
The next stage was Jockmok, a Lapp manse.*
The country is much the same for another day's journey
to Eandijaur, and there the mountains come in sight at Nyby.
" I never saw anything to equal the quantity of mosquitoes that
were pla}dng on the water. The sun had set, but the snowy
hills showed clear and cloudless against the yellow evening
sky, the lake was like glass, and the near forest told dark and
clear against the blue distance. A solitary boat was return-
ing from the cow-milking, leaving a yellow wake in the dark
shadow under the near hills. Got a drink of milk, and turned
* Of Laplanders and their ^' ruiindcars," of their magical drums and hags
full of demons, of their magical aiTOWs, and other strange matters, a curious
account is given iu " The History of Lapland, ^vritten by John Scheffer,
professor of law and rhetoric at Upsal in Sweden, at the Theater in Oxford,
MDCLXXiv., and are to be sold by George "West and Amos Curtein."
According to this author Jockmok was a holy place in heathen times, and
the neighbourhood abounded in places of worsliip. If so, the present occu-
pants said uotliiug about this subject.
. 310 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS— LAND-ICE.
ill to a liay-loft to sleep. It was a little square log-hut, not
much bigger than a four-poster. Through the open door I
saw my host set off to spear greyling ; and presently the birch
fire at the bow of his boat glanced red and glowed on the
still water, as he glided out into the dark twilight. It was
very beautiful.
" 13^/i.—Bathed as usual. The water gets colder every
day as we get nearer to the hills. INIy host had a famous
fishing in the short arctic night.
" Day piping hot ; hills still about sixty miles off, but
perfectly clear, and plainly seen."
The form of these mountains contrasts with the low
country in the most remarkable manner. They are jagged
peaks of the A pattern, but all the near hills and hollows are
moutonnees ^—v ^—^.
Quickjok is another priest's house, which was reached on
the 14tli. It is close to the foot of the high range which
makes the back-bone of Scandinavia.
On the other side of the range is Bodo (p. 248), and the
hills and islands are alike.
The Lulea river is smaller than the Tornea, but like it the
stream spreads out into long wide lakes, and slides down rock-
steps. Up to the hill range the country is alike on the Tornea
and Lulea, at Umea, at Sundsvall and Areskutan, at Elfdal
and Upsala, at Stockholm and Gotheborg, at Soderkoping,
Malmi), and Falkenberg.
Sweden is a series of wide drift terraces, almost Hat, which
rest in hollows in ice-ground rocks. Low hills and ridges rise
in the drift as ice-ground rocks rise in the sea off Gotheborg.
Up to a certain height the shape of the high hills con-
tinues to be rounded ; above that level are clills and peaks,
upon which a few patches of snow survive the summer. The
NORTHERN SCANDINxVVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 311
glen, at tlie mouth of which tho manse and church stand, is
half filled with a great terraced heap of clay and boulders.
There are no glaciers in the valleys, but there is a large
snow-field somewhere, near to which Lapps repair in summer
to get quit of flies which torment their deer. Quickjok seems
to stand on a moraine, and the plains are marshes.
The highest drift terrace is broad, and runs along the base
of steep hills and inland cliffs on the Swedish side ; on the
Norwegian side the cliffs rise from the sea, and narrow terraces
are left in the sheltered corners only. The fjeld-top, at
3000 feet, here as elsewhere, is a rolling plateau strewed with
big stones, and covered with a scanty vegetation.
Life at Quickjok close to the Arctic Circle is very like
life in the Highlands of Scotland in summer. In winter it is
very different, for the cold is severe, and the snow deep ; but,
like all mountaineers, the natives love their country dearly.
" Friday, 24ih.—No Lapps appeared, so went to the river
and bathed, and then went out duck-shooting with the
docker and the parson, and Marcus, in two boats ; Gueppe
(the dog) following in his owij four-oar.
" The whole valley is one maze of narrow canals winding
through the forest, with clay banks thickly clad with grass,
willow, and birch. At times it was difficult to shove the
boat through them. Eveiy here and there these canals open
out into shallow lakes, overgrown with long grass ; and into
these the docker and I plunged, wading up to our waists, and
blazing away at the ducks as they rose. Gueppe, in the
meantime, who hunted entirely on his own account, plunged
about near us, barking loudly when he could not get near
birds which he found. He is a sharp-nosed brute, like a dark
brown fox, with a bushy tail curled tightly over his back, and
he looks as unlike a water-dog as possible. He swims like
312 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
a fish all the same. Eeturned to the mause with twenty-
three ducks, of which I killed fifteen, Gueppe three, and the
parson and his clerk the rest. Their gun was a marvellous
tool. There were teal, widgeon, pintail, and a brown duck
which I did not know. There were also a tail and leg which
seemed to belong to a widgeon, but Gueppe ate the rest. It
was so warm that I left my coat in the boat ; the docker
wore neither shoes nor coat, and though wet for many hours,
we were quite warm all day. In the evening, while busily
drawing with one hand, and rubbing my midge-bitten face
with the other, I was startled by the sudden appearance of
the Lapp cow-general, with his flock of sheep at his heels.
The wretch had tied a handkerchief over his ears to keep off
the flies, and with his long mountain-pole on his shoulder,
and his strange tattered garments fluttering about his quaint
limbs, he looked the savage genius of the place.
" Patches of snow were on the hill-sides, but this is not
the popular view of life in Lapland.
" Saturday, 25ih.—Heavy rain all day. For something to
do, sketched the clerk's daughter, who A\'as a very pretty
Swedish maiden. In the evening the parson told me his
early history. How he lost his father when quite a child, and
how his mother, 'like a sea-bird with her young, flitted
to the coast to Pitea.' How, when he Avent to college, he
struggled with poverty ; and how at last, having vanquished
all difficulties, he returned to his native valley a priest.
'And when I saw the hills again that I remembered so well,
and the peaks that I had not seen for so many years, I don't
know how I felt,' said the worthy man, ' but I began to greet'
(grota)."
The natives are a strange race. They were coming
down from their sunnner haunts at this season, and we went
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 313
to visit them on the way to a famous fall and iron mountain,
which we never reached.
The last discovery, April 1864, which bears on the anti-
quity of man, proves that tribes, which once lived in caves in
Southern France, fed on large reindeer. Their bone imple-
ments have been found, and some are in the British Museum.
The ashes of their fires remain ; the debris of their meals are
there—the bones of reindeer, cracked to get at the marrow,
sucked, and then thrown to be gnawed by dogs. As these
facts bear upon climate, the ways of living Lapps have some
geological interest.
According to Whalenberg, a famous Swedish naturalist
quoted by Von Buch, the level at which a mean annual
temperature of 34° prevails limits the growth of plants fit
for reindeer pasture, so that Lapp camps are seldom found
above this line. If so, the old temperature in France was
not lower than 34° when the old inhabitants ate reindeer
venison.
According to the same author, a mean temperature, esti-
mated at 32|°, now prevails at a height of 4100 feet near
Quickjok. A little further west, on the Norwegian side,
3100 feet is the level at which only a few spots of rock peer
through snow in summer. Two thousand feet higher, at an
estimated mean temperature of 30°, a very few lichens grow.*
The low limit of the fjeld Finns is the sea-level, about
the North Cape. In Sweden the deer only come down in
winter. There is plenty of moss pasture near the sea, but a
certain fly drives deer and men to the snow. Further south,
wild reindeer keep on the high tops, about Eomsdal. Tamedeer are kept as far south as Bergen, but they do not flourish
in that wet climate, and they are kept on the high fjeld.
* Von Buch's Travels, 308.
314 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—L.VND-ICE.
They never come down to the sea or to rich grass pasture,
but seem to prefer cold, and moss which grows in cold
regions. If the French deer were of the same nature, their
existence proves a cold climate in France.
There were plenty of them, for they were eaten in large
numbers. They could not flourish without plenty of moss.
Moss does not grow abundantly without cold. The presence
of reindeer seems to indicate a mean temperature of 36° in-
stead of 55°—the climate of Jockmok in central France.
There must be a reason for a late change in temperature.
Whatever the past may have been, this is a sketch from the
life, of a tribe of herdsmen whose herds are deer, whose
chalets are tents, and whose summer and winter pastures are
never far from snow. A similar tribe may have come down
from the snows of the Alps and Pyrenees.*
"By the time we got up to the kotas, we had passed
through some sharp showers. The Lapps had now arrived, and
a tent was pitched beside the conical hut. In the kota I found
a dirty old woman and a lot of dirty children sitting round a
fire made in the middle of a ring of stones, and looking very
picturesque in the half light that streamed down through the
chimney. There was a heap of gear and human creatures,
iron pots and wooden bowls, dogs and deerskins, piled in
admirable confusion ; and the mother was engaged in a hunt
amongst the tangled locks of the youngest of her brood. Not
liking this neighbourhood, went out and made my own
shelter, and got on a greatcoat, for it was cold and misty and
comfortless after the warm glen. Tried the tent, and found
a very fine-looking Lapp woman sitting on a heap of deer-
skins, serving out coffee and reindeer cream to the docker
* Reindeers do live without moss in the present climate of London at tlie
Zoological Gardens, hut they arc prisoners.
NOETHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 315
with a quaint silver spoon. She had silver bracelets and a
couple of silver rings ; and altogether, with her black hair and
dark brown eyes glancing in the firelight, she looked eastern
and magnificent. Set to work with the paint-box instanter,
but she would not sit still for a moment, and it was almost
dark. Gave it up, and went out amongst the deer, which had
gathered round the camp to be milked. There were about six
hundred in the herd, and some old stags were quite magnificent.
One had fourteen points on one brow antler, and about forty
in all. He looked quite colossal in the evening mist. Asmall imp of a boy, about three feet high, and a child just
able to toddle, were wandering about amongst the deer. The
boy was amusing himself by catching the largest stags with
a lasso, to pull the loose velvet from their antlers. He never
missed his throw, and when he had the noose round the beast's
neck, it was grand to see him set his heels on the ground, and
haul himself in, hand over hand, till he got the noose round
the stag-'s nose. Then he had him safe and quiet, with the
nose and neck tied together, and then they posed for a pic-
ture of savage life. The small imp was practising on the
calves and hinds, and screaming at them in emulation of the
bigger brother. He kept kicking the big stags which lay on
the ground with the most perfect familiarity. After I got
packed into my nest, the whole herd almost walked over me.
I heard their heels clicking beside my head, as they went
grunting like a herd of swine. A Lapp followed, shouting a
deep guttural Ho ! at intervals, and several dogs followed
yelping at his heels. It was a queer feeling to lie there on
the bare hill-side, and hear the rushing sound of their feet
sweep through the low scrubby brush, and gradually fade away
as they trotted off to the sound of Ho! Presently came the
patter of rain, and the sough of a rushing wind that shook
31G DENUDATION—FROST-MAEKS— LAND-ICE.
the willow-buslics, and swept moaning over the hill. Mylow shelter was warm and dry, and I slept soundly.
" 2lth.—Awakened by hearing the Lapps chattering;
poked my head out and found everything wrapped in thick
mist. Pulled my head in again to brood over my ill luck,
and gather courage for a plunge into air. Eolled out at last
and scrambled into a kota, where I found Marcus smoking
as usual. All the children were scrambling about their mother,
who was getting ready for milking the deer. Got some food,
packed up, and talked about this unattainable place, Autsik.
No one who was at home could find the way in such a
mist ; so there was nothing for it but to wait for clear wea-
ther, or the father of the family, who was away. Watched
the day's proceedings till the mist changed into heavy rain;
when I pitched my tent again to keep a dry bed. Spent the
day in sketching and studying Lapps.
" The rain came through the tent, and in the hut it was
impossible even to sit on the ground without bending for-
ward. The children would look over my shoulder, to myterror, so sketching was not easy. There were five dogs,
three children, the old woman, Marcus, and myself ; and all
day long, the handsome lady from next door, and her hus-
band, and a couple of quaint mangy-looking old fellows, kept
popping in to see how the stranger got on. The kota itself
was a cone of birch sticks and green turf, about seven feet
high ; and twelve or fourteen in diameter. It was close quar-
ters, but the scene was worth the discomfort. No one seemed
to care a rap for rain, or fear colds, more than the deer.
Breakfast consisted of milk and cheese and boiled fish ; and
whenever any dish had been used the old dame carefully
wiped it out with her crooked forefinger, and then licked the
finger and eveiy attainable place in the dish itself It was
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 317
wonderful to see her dexterity, and to hear her talk while
she polished tlie dish. Wlien one of the children spilt some
milk on its deerskin dress, it was all gathered and licked np
with the same tongue which found time to scold the offender.
" Dinner was reindeer's flesh boiled. The children cracked
the bones on the stones after they had polished the outside;
and they sucked up the marrow ; then the dogs, who had
not dared to steal, were called in their turn, and got the
scraps. Wooden bowls were set apart for the dogs. There
was an extra meal after dinner on the arrival of papa, who
came dripping like a river-god, with a supply of bread, but-
ter, and salt fish, stowed in a leathern bag. This was evi-
dently an unusual treat, so it was all consumed. The father
was a fine man for a Lapp, forty years old, and five feet high
;
he had walked fourteen miles in a deluge, but he only wrung
his tall conical blue cap to keep the water from trickling
down his nose ; and then he sat down to watch his children
enjoy the feast, while a brother and a young girl, who came
with him, joined our circle. We were decidedly too thick, so
I went next door. There 1 found nobody at home but a black
dog. Seated myself on a heap of deerskins to have a quiet
pipe, and was startled by a loud Lapp exclamation, which
came from an old feUow on whom I had sat. Got up laugh-
ing, and made Marcus brew coffee for all hands.
" The tent was about as big as the kota, made of striped
stuff, so coarse that I could almost see through it, as through
a veil.
" It was patched here and there, and smoked brown near
the top. It did not touch the ground anywhere, and at the
smallest disturbance three dogs plunged out barking. They
popped in when the row was over, and curled themselves up
amongst the gear. The door was a canvas slip, like a boat's
3 1
8
1 lENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
jib, with cross-sticks fastened to it ; and it was to windward,
so that it could not blow open. No one could come in with-
out stooping, kneeling, and turning sideways, and I constantly-
stuck fast when I tried. The canvas was stretched by poles,
which were joined at the top with considerable skill. This
dwelling amounts to a large umbrella, for it gives little shel-
ter from the wind. The life must be healthy ; red blood was
glowing under the brown skins of old and young, and they
were bright-eyed, clear, healthy, flat-nosed, square-headed,
black-haired, merry beings. The owners of the tent were
married in winter, and had lots of gear, silver ornaments,
bone contrivances, one of which was for weaving coloured
woollen bands ; baskets of ingenious shapes, very well made,
of birch and fir roots variously coloured. They all wore long
knives, and the newly-married couple smoked and drank
coffee at intervals all day.
" Slept in my own tent, nevertheless, and heard the rain
pattering close to my nose, while the wind shook the wands
till I thought the cover would fly off to Norway.
" 2^1.—Cold, wet, and nasty weather. Found the Lapps
getting up, the old woman licking the dishes for breakfast,
the father smoking while putting on the shoes of his youngest
child. He first spread out a hatful of fine hay made from a
particular kind of grass, and then he tossed it on the stones
beside the fire till it was perfectly dry. Then the boy was
seized by the leg and laid on his back, while foot and hay were
crammed and stuffed into a miniature Lapp shoe. It was a
work of some difiiculty to make all fit nicely, and bind it all
neatly round the leg and the leather leggings. They made a
good group, the father and son, and a black puppy that would
nibble the boy's rosy cheeks as he lay sprawling on the
ground.
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 319
" After breakfast, gave up my trip to this fall, as the
weather seemed fairly broken. Got under weigh at 12 in a
fair blink, and w\alked a little to one side of my train, admir-
ing. There were two Lapps and the man from Niavvi, with
my goods on their backs ; and a picturesque old volunteer
with a birch-bark knapsack strapped on the top of his deer-
skin shirt. We soon picked up a boy with a milk-barrel
slung on his back, and each of us carried a long pole. Wemarched single file over the fjeld, plodding through bog and
muir till we got to a second camp. Here were two tents and
a portable larder pitched under a high rock for shelter, with
the first of the birch trees close beside them for fire ; a burn
brawling past, for water ; and distant peeps of forest and lake,
low hills and flat plains, peering through the edge of the mist,
for a landscape.
" All our party laid down their loads, and one by one
they slid into the largest tent. I followed, and sat down, and
said, ' Puarist,' and lit my pipe like the rest. There were
about a dozen of all ages seated round the fire besides our
party. The tent was far larger than those which I had seen.
The people were clean and well dressed, and they were enjoy-
ing a cuj) of coffee all round when we came in. The cream
was served out with a silver spoon by a young lady, who
carefully licked it, and tucked it into a bag which hung round
her neck like a necklace. That done, she went on w^eaving a
very pretty basket-work bottle. Another really pretty woman,
with large dark eyes, sat in a corner making a garment of
some sort, while a miniature Lapp, with its arms round her
neck, peeped over her shoulder, and one a size larger stood
beside her and stared. There was no time to draw, so took a
mental picture, bid them Te-at-ast-ain, and slid out as we
came. The whole of the black pack plunged out by their
320 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
own way, and barked at us. The missus, sliding out after us,
weut to her travelling store—a bundle of clothes on a triangle
of poles—took out some dainty, and gave it to the boy with a
kiss. We took the same open order, and marched down hill
to the old route.
"These Swedish Lapps are small of stature, very hardy,
good sturdy walkers, utterly careless about wind and weather.
They are curious, but not so curious as the Swedes. They
are not free with their goods ; they are not hospitable. NoLapp ever offered me milk or coffee when he helped himself.
They gave what I asked for, and I paid ; but other hill-folk
offer their best to the stranger."
After a pretty long experience of Lapps elsewhere, and
after reading the accounts of other travellers, this first im-
pression has been confirmed. No Lapp has ever offered me
so much as a scrap of food, or a drop of milk ; but every
Lapp I know was ready to sell anything, and greedy for silver,
which is hoarded and hidden under ground.
" From this place dropped down to Lulea, where the usual
life of a hard-drinking northern town seems to go on. Thence
steamed to Sundsvall with a strange mixed crew—a Swede,
Whalenberg, who had spent seven years in South Africa ; a
German butterfly-hunter from Berlin, who had been up to
Quickjok before me ; and many other travellers and travelled
men.
" At Sundsvall found a ' Tivoli,' fireworks, and a balloon-
ascent; and a young bear chained in a gentleman's yard,
making eyes at chickens. Drove up to the fjeld opposite
Trondhjem, to the region of bears, elk, Lapps, and snow-drifts
;
and then south along the hills to Elfdal, through a region of
squatters beginning to clear and till the forest. From Elfdal,
near which place La])ps and reindeer still roam on the water-
NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA—OLD LOCAL SYSTEM. 321
shed, drove through a flat tilled country with a history, to
Upsala, with its university and its tombs of Odin, which are
piles of old glacial drift * They are near the end of a ridge
of boulders, of which mention is made by Sir C. Lyell, and
in the ridge are sea-shells.
" From Stockholm steamed to Lulea ; travelled to Ham-
burg and to Eendsburg, then the seat of war. Found boul-
ders in flat clay lands but little raised above the sea, men
ploughing, and troops hutting themselves for winter."
Eeturned to England via Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Amster-
dam, and Eotterdam, and left glacial mud, which may have
come from Switzerland, floating in the Ehine. After thus
crossing the trough in which the Baltic lies, at six dif-
ferent points ; after travelling round the whole peninsula,
and crossing the isthmus ; after taking a peep at the Eussian
side, fishing and copying rock-forms everywhere, a glacial
theory had formed insensibly. Either the hills of Sweden
had been covered with land glaciers, which made one big gla-
cier in the Baltic ; or the hills were so covered, and the sea
was up to their bases, and loaded with ice-floats, which moved
down the Baltic over Southern Sweden, and into the German
Ocean. In any case numerous ice-grooves point across the
rivers and along the coast-line, instead of pointing up at the
mountains, which they would do if made by glaciers like those
in the Alps.
It was plain that the whole peninsula bore marks of
glacial denudation and deposition.
If an ice-laden ocean-current made these marks, then stiU
further north, marks of submergence ought to be found upon
the isthmus. Good salmon-fishing and a new country were
* The mounds were explored by boring a passage into the centre ; and some
remains were found which show that they are also monuments of human art.
Y
322 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
to be found near the Tana, at a distance from tlie high grounds
;
it remained to be seen what manner of country lay next the
polar basin.
Boulders and roches inouionnies. Hay-fuUh and corn-land beside a hi^,
Fio. 49. Wasa, in Finland. July 24, 1850. ,
CHAPTER XXI.
DENUDATION 13—FROST-MAEKS 11—LAND-ICE 10—FLOATS—
NOKTHEEN SCANDINAVIA 3.
Sir Charles Ltell says*—" If it be true that delivery be
the first, second, and third requisite in a popular orator, it is
no less certain that to travel is of first, second, and third im-
portance to those who desire to originate just and comprehen-
sive views concerning the structure of our globe."
But powers of locomotion and comprehension, and human
life, are limited quantities. No one man can travel every-
where, and understand everytliing; and few can travel so
much at ease as to have time to observe and note things which
come within the range of their limited faculties. For that
reason, books of travel are magazines from which those who
have travelled the same road may often gather facts to add to
their own store.
A naturalist's account of Northern Scandinavia was writ-
ten by Leopold Von BucLf He travelled in Scandinavia in
1806, 1807, 1808, and crossed in September 1807 from Alten
to Tornea. He walked and boated ; his luggage carried over-
land by reindeer and men. He took the mountain way over
Nuppivari to Kautokeino.
According to his measurements, Nuppivari, where the
• Principles of Geolocjij, 1853 ; ninth edition.
t Travels, etc.,',translated by John Black, with Notes by Jameson. Lon-
don, 1813.
324 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
French lady found boulders (p. 229), is 2655 feet above the
level of the sea ; Kautokeino, on the Alten, 834 ; the water-
shed, 1500; Enontekis on the Swedish side, 1069. At the
watershed, the nearest lands of equal height now are Spitz-
bergen to the north, the Ural Mountains to the east, and
Greenland to the west.
At the beginning of his work. Von Buch mentions the
discovery of sea-plants (Fucus sacharinus : sostera, etc.) in
peat-mosses near Berlin and Drontheim ; small boulders of
red and gray granite between Hamburg and the Baltic;
granite boulders inDenmark ; large blocks in Pomerania,Meck-
lenburg, and the northern parts of the Mark of Brandenburg;
and wastes of sand in Mecklenburg. Throughout his work
he mentions boulders, and refers to beds of shells on shore,
and to a rise of land in Scandinavia generally. Of boulders
on the watershed north of the Gulf of Bothnia he says little;
but at Palajoensu on the Tornea, at about 1000 feet above
the Baltic, he noticed " a large and remarkable block of gray
coarse granular zircon syenite with angular cavities, as at
Christiania. " He adds, " If it has come thus far, the formation
cannot be at a great distance. ... It is singular that it should
appear so high and so insulated."
The rock of this country he calls gneiss. At other places
lower down and along the Swedish coast he specifies erratic
blocks of limestone, clay-slate, etc. ; but he always assumed
that these belonged to the neighbourhood.
He was surprised to find pleasant autumn weather at
Tornea in September, and to learn that firm snow was not
expected till the end of October. He fell in with Whalenberg,
who, like Linnseus, crossed from Bodo to Quickjok, and had
spent the summer in exploring Sulitjelma and the glaciers
near it. He had seen Switzerland himself On the Gulf he
FLOATS—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 325
heard on all sides of the sinking of the water-level, and of
means taken to fix the rate at which land is rising.
"Near to Uddevalla a singular skiarry (shorn, cut, reef-
like) country again appeared. Eocks intersected in such a
way as if large floods had penetrated through them "(p. 407).
How strange it now seems that a good traveller—a pupil
of Werner, an able mineralogist and botanist, and a man of
keen observation, should notice and yet overlook so much
that seems to hang so well together.
He saw, but does not seera to have noticed, ice-marks which
are as fresh as if the glacial period dated from last winter.
A learned traveller,* Dr. Thomas Thomson, says of this
district—" The country round Gottenburgh is the most sin-
gular that I ever saw. It consists of low precipitous ridges
of rocks, running in various directions, and quite naked. The
highest which I measured was 310 feet high. These ridges are
separated from each other by valleys about a mile wide. The
rocks are all gneiss, with large beds of felspar and hornblende."
The same author describes a terraced mountain which he
visited on his way east to Stockholm. The high seamark
makes another link in the chain of evidence.
A traveller, who takes pains to inform his readers that he
was not scientific, published an account of this part of South-
ern Scandinavia in 1826.t
The country near Uddevalla thus appeared to one who
was chiefly concerned with men and manners, but who used
his pencil also :
—
" The scenery exhibited a rugged and gigantic grandeur,
similar to the tumultuous waves of the mighty deep ; as if
heaved up into billows by some extraordinary convulsion of
Travels in Sweden, 1812. By Thomas Thomson,
t Travels, etc. By WiUiam Rae Wilson.
|;26 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND- ICE.
nature. I could almost have imagined that at one time they
had been a limpid ocean, and when tossed into the highest fury
by tempests had suddenly become solid, and fixed for ever in
the wild and, I may say, angry form these now assumed."
These rock-waves are, in fact, deep furrows carved in bedded
rocks, gneiss, etc., which dip regularly towards the west and
north-west (Von Buch, p. 21). Of boulders on the Swedish side
of this tract, Mr. Wilson says—"Much of the soil was rocky,
and the huge pieces of stone scattered about as if they had
been dropped from the sky, or thrown out of volcanic craters."
Von Buch compares them to fallen towers and lava-streams.
Haussman, whom he quotes, says of Smoland—" The blocks
lie above one another like rocks ; the whole province is
covered with them."
" If," says Von Buch, " we succeed in connecting all the
facts relating to the spreading of boulder-stones in the north,
in the order of cause and effect, light will be thrown on a
number of similar phenomena in other parts of the earth, and
we shall thus be enabled to ascend to the general causes
which concurred in producing all these different phenomena,
perhaps at the same period."
This was looking ahead, and pointing out the way.
In a note on Von Buch, Jameson states that lie had picked
up specimens of zircon syenite in Galloway. This particular
rock Von Buch found in situ near Christiania, and he had
found it as a perched block in Lappmark. Hitherto it has
not been found as a fixture in the British Isles. A mere
salmon-fisher and pot-hunter, wandering to satisfy a strong
tendency to move; who only noticed stones and rock-forms
which were picturesque, or too conspicuous to be overlooked
;
who had no theory to support, and gathered a knowledge of
ice-marks as he gathered his food by the way ; knew nothing
FLOATS—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 327
of zircon syenite. But Von Buch, the mineralogist, noticed a
boulder of this stone near the watershed of Lapland, raised
1000 feet above the Baltic ; and Jameson, the Scotch pro-
fessor, found another block on the eastern coast of Scotland.
These three points—Lapland, Christiania, and Galloway-
are put " en rapport" by these erratics. " How got they
there ?" No one has yet endeavoured to show that stones float
by themselves ; it would take a marvellous stream to roll stones
from Scandinavia to Scotland ; but Scandinavian stones have
wandered there, and the source may be in Lapland.*
Scotch erratics were noticed by a French geologist, who
travelled to Staffa in l784t This writer had a theory, and
to it he referred what he saw in Scotland.
At page 107, vol. ii., the author says— " As we drew
near Torloisk (in Mull), at the distance of about three miles
from the castle, we came to some mountains entirely vol-
canic,, at least 250 toises high. It excited my astonish-
ment as I passed along their summit to observe some large
blocks of granite rolled and partly rounded, detached from
each other, and resting on volcanic matter, to which however
they did not adhere, having been evidently transported hither
by the effect of some couvoilsion."
In striving to account for these foreign stones, the author
suggests that volcanoes had ejected the granite from deep-
seated quarries ; or that the hill-tops were under water when
the granite was rolled by currents to hill-tops in MuU.
* For a description of ice-marks in Scandinavia, see Chambers' Edin.
Journal, New Series, 1849. Gottenburg is described, No. 307, p. 307 ; the
route to Chi-istiania in No. 308.
t Travels in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides, etc. etc. etc. Translated
from the French of B. Faujas Saint-Fond, Member of the National Institute,
and Professor of Geology in the Museum of Natural History at Paris. Lon-
don 1799.
328 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
But a current strong enough to roll zircon syenite from
Lapland, or even from Christiania to Galloway, and up hill
;
and stones strong enough to withstand rolling so far, with-
out being ground to powder ; are things foreign to human
experience.
Another thought seems to have occurred to the French
Vulcanist. At pp. 214, 215, he mentions large blocks and
trains of " lava" upon sandstone near Largo and Kirkcaldy.
These he compares to similar trains in Vivarais, one of which
is twenty miles long, and four or five miles wide.
But even lava-streams will not explain the transport of
the Norwegian rock zircon syenite ; and it would take a big
volcano to throw stones so far.
The evidence of a geologist, who saw igneous action every-
where, is strong when it bears upon glacial action. The
evidence of the school of Werner, who saw aqueous action
and deposition from solution in every rock, from granite to
obsidian, is equally strong when it supports modern geology,
which looks to the present state of things in the world, for
an explanation of phenomena on the wotld's surface.
In short, a modern glacialist may cull facts from natural-
ists, Neptunists, Vulcanists, and idlers, who recorded what
they saw ; and thus caU up an array of impartial dead wit-
nesses to support his own evidence.
Drawn on by an amusing old book of travels, it is easy to
scale mountains, and cross the sea in an arm-chair ; to visit the
dead, share in their feasts, and watch their ways, with a buried
traveller for guide. To an Englishman, the Scotch travels
of Saint-Fond, in 1784, offer a series of entertaining sketches
of men and rocks, landscapes and figures, dress, houses, and
country in the West Highlands, as they appeared to a polished
Frenchman,who was full of ready-made theories about manners
FLOATS—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 329
and customs, as well as rocks. His own portrait, as he draws
himself, waiting at Oban for a big boat, to follow his com-
rades, who had crossed the sound in a little one, and pestered
to death by a polite piper, who would play one horrible tune
in his honour, every night and all night long, is a gem worthy
of a place in any library. The portrait of the smith's house
at Dalmally is a likeness of many houses now. The zircon
syenite boulder is a link which joins Scotland to Northern
Scandinavia. Von Buch and Saint-Fond join the present to
the past.
One warm picture of Lapland has been sketched above
(chap, xix.) A picture of the same country in a glacial period
is given in another old book of travels.*
The author with a large party, two of whom were ladies,
travelled first with reindeer, afterwards with horse-sledges,
from Bosekap to Tornea. They started on the 6th of De-
cember, and took four days to reach Kautokeino ; on the
19th they got to Muonioniska, on the 23d to Tornea,
The usual time occupied by merchants at this season is
ten days.
The temperature was often 16° below zero. The con-
spicuous features in the landscapes described and depicted,
are snow, ice, mist, storm, and darkness ; a few tree-tops, and a
very few bare cliffs ; an occasional herd of tame deer, and wild
Lapps ; an occasional story of a bear, or wolf, or fox, or
rumours of reiper caught in snares ; make up the sum of
vegetable and animal life noticed in crossing Finmark. It
is a snow world in winter.
The travellers racing with their strange drunken half-
* A Winter in Lapland and Sweden'with various Observations relative to
Finmark aiid its InhaUtants made during a residence at Hammerfest, near the
North Cape, by Arthur de Capell Brooke. John Murray, 1826.
330 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE,
savage guides ; their rolls and tumbles in the snow and
other adventures, make the foreground in this white pano-
rama. They were the most conspicuous objects in this snow
desert in its annual glacial period, which rises and falls with
the rising and sinking of the sun in the sky.
The most northern river, the Alten, was the only unfrozen
stream crossed in this journey. As far as Sundsvall, the
Gulf and the larger Swedish rivers, mentioned above
(chaps, xviii. and xix.), were all frozen, so that land and
water were used indifferently as roads. An occasional ship
or boat, frozen into the white plain, served to remind the
Englishman that he was at sea in a sledge. The tempera-
ture was often 14° below zero. At Stockholm everything
was frozen ; at Gotheborg, on the 13th of February, the
packet was reached by walking over ice, and after sailing
and anchoring lower down, they were forced to weigh and
put to sea for fear of being beset and frozen in for months.
In May, Von Buch crossed the largest lake in Norway on
foot, walldng in water a foot deep ; he walked on the top of
melting ice, followed by a horse and sledge, with which he
did not quite like to trust the ice. Soon after, at the high
water shed ofthe Dovre, described above (chap, xviii.}, he
could not see the ground for snow, and his dress was like that
of an Esquimaux. June on the Fille Fjeld watershed, 2343
feet liigh,* is described above.
In spring, when the annual glacial period is passing from
Scandinavia, the country is almost impassable everywhere. The
ground is frozen above, and wet below ; the water-crust is weak
and bends, and the traveller and his traps sink into iced mud,
or drop through ice into chilled water. Eivers are swollen to
floods, rills become rivers, and sweep down stones which no
* According to Von Buch.
FLOATS—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 331
summer flood has strength to move. Ice-rafts which formed
about stones in autumn, float ; they are lifted up, and piled
one upon the other, and dashed against rocks and sunken
stones, like the logs above described (chap, x.) Stones frozen
into a conglomerate of ice and sand float down the rivers to
the fjords, on and in ice-rafts ; and when the ice melts, these
stones sink, and stop. Thus from every watershed, down
every glen, stones float, when the thaw begins in Scandinavia,
after the annual glacial period of winter in the north.
The weight of the stones, the size of the rafts, the distance
to which they float, and the direction which they take, de-
pend upon climate, streams, watersheds, tides, and ocean
currents. The quantity of work done depends on the engine,
and the amount of power applied. Any English mill-stream
will do for illustration. The ice which forms near the bank
holds pebbles and sand ; and when the thaw comes with a
flood, the miniature boulders float a stage down stream, and
make their marks.
The Thames makes larger rafts and carries larger stones.
In 1864 ice was packed to a thickness of three or four feet
about bridges in London ; and it contained things picked up
on the shore and dropped on the ice, which floated up and
down with the tide on and in small ice-rafts.
The Tana river, which is not so large as the Thames,
makes larger floats, because more cold is set to work to build
the floats. On the 21st of June 1852, a few blocks of ice,
three feet thick, were melting rapidly on a gravel bank at the
mouth of the Tana, and they contained sand and small stones.
It was stated that large stones were brought down by the
river-ice ; and that the course of the stream over the delta
had been changed in a few years, so as to injure the salmon-
fishing by stopping the run of the stream in one direction.
332 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
The delta which this river is thus rapidly forming, with the
help of ice-floats, is a terrace in the sea. From deep blue
water in Tana Fjord, a boat suddenly shoots into light-green
water, through which, on a calm day, the sandy bottom can
be seen clearly. Further on the water shoals suddenly, the
sand is like a rampart seven or eight feet high, with three or
four feet of water flowing over the flat top, and driving sand
over the edge. When the ice-rafts come down, they bring
gravel and stones ; and these may be seen amongst the sand
on these terraced drift-plains, forming under water at the end
of a stream which carries ice-floats. Many of the stones in
the water are of considerable size, far larger than stones which
are found on the most exposed sea-beaches, where the largest
Atlantic waves have the longest fetch and greatest power
;
and yet this Tana Fjord is sheltered by high rocky hills.
The carrying-engine is floating ice, and a stronger engine
of the same kind would carry larger stones.
The direction of transport is in each case the direction in
which water flows. The Glommen flows out of a lake on the
Dovre Fjeld, and runs 4575 feet down to the sea, whence a
current flows along the coast of Norway towards Hull.
Any float would move from the watershed of Norway to
Lindes Nses, if not to England, by this route.
The dimensions of the stones moved, depend on the size
of the ice-engine. The Glommen is no bigger than a mill-
stream where it rises, so it can only carry small stones from
the watershed now ; it is larger than the Thames or the
Tana lower down, and the climate is cold, so the Glommen
has more power when it gets to the sea ; but if a few grains
of sand from the watershed, or a few pebbles and boulders of
larger size picked up lower down, reach the sea-level now,
the float melts, and the sea-current alone has no power to carry
FLOATS—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 333
stones to Hull, without ships or rafts. The movements
and dimensions of these engines depend on climate, and
if climate is cold, this engine is strong. A stone dropped
from Bodals Kaabe falls on a sledge which can-ies it down to
the sea. If the sea were cold enough, the Fjserland glacier
would be launched and able to carry its freight in any direc-
tion, which the ocean-stream followed, to any spot whose
climate was warm enough to sink the ship. If glaciers in
Scandinavia were as large as the Unteraar glacier (p. 152),
then a stone as big as the largest block on the Swiss glacier
might fall from Sneehrettan, slide down the Driva groove,
and sail off in the Atlantic. The transport of large blocks
depends on climate and current. If hills pierce the cold shell,
or if it comes down upon the sea, glaciers like those in the
Alps may reach the sea and carry blocks. On the water-
sheds of Norway are blocks which are not derived from
neighbouring peaks, and which no mere water-streams could
carry or roll. Sneehattan is mica slate ; and stones in old
moraines near it are slaty ; but the whole of the fjeld near
this mountain is strewed with great stones which are not
slaty but round, and some at least are granite. No river,
even with ice-floats, no glacier were it the largest known,
could carry these stones to these spots. But ice-marks seem
to prove that ice crossed over the ridge of Scandinavia at
various passes. It passed south-westwards over Sweden
above Gotheborg, near lat. 58°, at a level now 500 feet or
more above the sea, where mountain-terraces and beds of sea-
shells rest on the polished rocks. It also passed south-west-
wards over Sweden and Norway about Tann Foss, near lat. 64°,
at a height of 2000 feet. It seems to have passed westwards
and south-westwards over Finnmark, about Kautokeino, etc.,
near lat. 70", at a level of about 1500 or 2000 feet above the
334 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
present sea. The witnesses who state these facts had no bias.
Chambers, who " agreed with Agassiz," says, in 1849 (p. 329),
. . . ." how such a glacial sheet was originated, and how
it could move across the whole irregular face of a large
country, up hill and down hill, maintaining over wide pro-
vinces one direction, I think it would be difficult to explain."
The writer of the journal quoted in chap, xix., etc., who walked
over Finnmark in 1849, encumbered with a land-ice theory
learned in the Alps in 1841, was equally unable to make his
ice-theory fit sea-ice marks, which he saw and hopes to see
again. It has been shown that the peninsula is rising from the
sea ; if it were down at the level of high boulders, and the cold
shell of climate lowered simultaneously, sea-currents might
carry ice-floats of any size in any direction over the fjeld, and
the ocean-stream with its ice-floats would account for boulders
of the actual size. The marks upon Scandinavia seem to show
that the glacial period in that country coincided with high
sea-marks ; and that the cold diminished after the land had
risen, or the sea had fallen to a certain level, which is now
marked on the hills by terraces and horizontal grooves.
The next step is a further attempt to show what some of
these marks are like.
^^T^
Via. 50. PiABTER OF PAKI8 MODEL. Page 338. Contrived to imitate the fonnation of
terraces of loose materials on a slope, under water, near the surface, while the water-
line is gradually sinking.
CHAPTER XXTI.
DENUDATION 14—FROST-MARKS 12—LAND-ICE 11—FLOATS 2
—
TERRACES NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA 4.
The first step is to show by some familiar example what a
terrace is. When the tide has ebbed so as to leave a sand-
bank awash, but surrounded, the low sandy island often
wears away between wind and water. Eippling waves dig
at the sea-level, a sand-cliff forms and falls, and a talus-heap
spreads under water beneath it, taking a particular shape.
When the tide ebbs lower, the first terrace rises. The top is
almost flat, and the side makes an angle with the lower plane,
which depends on the material sorted in water, by water.
Where a sea beats upon an island it wears a notch in
rock, and makes a rock-cliff, with a stone talus and a beach,
on a terrace of shingle.
In the Isle of Wight, for instance, the sea is cutting a shelf
in a hill of chalk, which is about 300 feet high at Freshwater.
Below the lighthouse at the Needles, a beach made of rounded
blue flint pebbles stands on a floor of chalk ; above the shelf
is a wall of white chalk with the fractured surface of the cUff
fresh ; below the shelf is the sea, with a terrace of pebbles
and a talus of fragments quarried from the cliff. On the rock-
shelf is the beach of shingle, and at low tide it is terraced.
The surface of the worn shelf is not like the broken chalk
cliff. ^Vhen closely examined it is found to be smooth and
round, and pitted with small dints ; and the rolled stones
336 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
which are packed on the shelf bear similar marks. Wherever
there is an exposed rocky coast, similar notches are at the sea-
level ; and at Scratchels Bay, in the Isle of Wight, the be-
ginning of a sea-cave may be seen also. This sea-mark is
like the letter L ; a cliff rising above a worn plain, like a wall
above a floor.
When the tide ebbs, or when a river shrinks in its bed,
the water makes a series of like marks, which may be likened
to stairs. These go by the name of storm-beaches on the sea
coast ; and they have been called raised beaches on a larger
scale. They are found in high mountains.
In winter the Oxera in Iceland is frozen ; and in spring
when ice breaks up, and snow melts, the stream swells and
brings down ice and black sand. It does that which the
Arctic Current is doing close at hand. In both cases
running water wears rock;partly by rolling and running,
partly by carrying floats loaded with heavier solids. Whenthe stream shrinks in its bed, land rises because water falls
;
but the same action must have gone on if Scandinavia were
pushed up in a frozen sea. The little river leaves sloping
banks of loose sand, partly rolled, partly ice-borne, partly
blown by winds; and these wet sand-banks rest upon the
smooth sloping lava surface, which running water, moving
sand, and floating ice, have been wearing and smoothing for
centuries. In July 1862, in a pool above the faU at Thing-
vaUa, where the water is constantly rippling and flowing
one way, a hollow in a sandbank of this description was
found to be surrounded by seven regular terraces, with flat
tops and sloping sides. They were a few inches high, but
perfect models of the Alten " terraces," and Scotch " raised
beaches."
The process by which these miniature terraces were
FLOATS—TERRACES—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 337
formed, illustrates larger formations of the same pattern, and
may be imitated in any puddle or mill-stream.
As the water fell, a sloping bank of loose materials de-
posited under water upon the rock gradually rose to the sur-
face. Waves upon the surface of the pool washed sand from
the sloping rock, and left occasional stones like perched
blocks ; while the top of the sandbank was formed into a
plain like the top of a terrace.
As the water fell, the first plain dried, and waves under-
mined the bank between wind and water, leaving a shelf and
a sloping talus, and spreading out a second plain under water.
As the river continued to fall, the process was repeated ; and
an eighth terrace was forming below the seventh, when the
pool was visited. Probably the next flood swept the rock
bare. In this case the sand was not evenly spread about the
rock-pool. Tlie terraces were not remnants of an ancient
stratified water formation, the rest of which had been washed
away ; they were simply marks of a changing water-level, a
series of talus-heaps washed off the rock, on which the stream
had piled a heap of loose materials when it was higher. Each
terrace did not mark a sudden fall of water or rise of land;
it was a result produced by a gradual fall of the water-level.
A series of larger terraces, raised beaches, and such-like sea-
marks on hiU-sides, do not prove alternate periods of move-
ment and rest ; a series results from the regular fall of every
ebb, and from the shrinking of every stream.
In Scandinavia they may have resulted from the move-
ments of water, and of land-ice and coast-ice, which together
swept and carried stones to the sea, and shot the rubbish
along the coast. Waves alone will not account for the Scan-
dinavian terraces ; but a new agent comes into play where
the sea freezes.
z
338 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
When frozen rivers rise and sink in their beds, or when
the sea is frozen in northern firths, ice raised by the flood is
lowered by the ebb, and part of it sticks to the shore about
high-water mark. The strength of this lever is measured by
the strength of the ice ; the engine wdiich works it is the tide,
and that wheel in the great engine is worked by forces which
move worlds. The "ice-foot" does little work in England
where ice is thin, and sea-ice rare ; but it will serve for
illustration, as a plaster model helps to explain the shape of
a terrace. In Scandinavia the ice-foot has but little po^er,
but it does some notable work in the Baltic. But if the tale
told by other ice-marks be true, then ice in Scandinavia was
once a powerful lever, strong enough to lift and lower the
stones of which terraces are made.
It is easy to make terraces, and see how the form grows.
Into any deep vessel pour a heap of dry plaster of Paris
from a funnel. It will take the form of a cone A . Pour w^ater
into the vessel till it covers the cone, and the heap will
spread at the base. Now run the water off slowly, and keep
the surface in motion while the level sinks. The rising
mound will be terraced ; the plaster island surrounded by
contour lines, w^hich are water-marks. When the plaster
sets, it is a model of many islands—for example, the Isle of
Man, which is surrounded by contour lines of terraces.
The way in which chips are packed in moving water, and
forms Mliich beds of silt assume, may be seen upon a larger
scale in the lochs of Western Scotland. Wliatever power
the unfrozen ocean may now have, is there exerted to the
fullest extent by the Atlantic ; and the sandbanks and
boulder heaps which form in and about the sea which
divides Scotland from Ireland are of larger proportions.
Tlio materials of whicli these banks are composed would
FLOATS—TERRACES—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 339
make large tracts of sedimentary rock if hardened ; or wide
tracts of land, if raised above water. The movements of the
strong currents which flow backwards and forwards over
these banks are well known, and soundings give the contour
of the sea-bottom.
It is imjDOSsible to get sections of these submarine beds :
the tide ebbs and flows in a rapid stream twenty or thirty
miles wide, and forty fathoms deep in the outer channel.
But the same tide ebbs and flows in straits and narrow sea-
lochs, and these minor currents arrange silt in shallow water
on the same principle. In calm sunny weather, the whole
proceedings may be watched from a boat, for the water is
beautifully clear amongst the Scotch islands.
The same tides also ebb and flow, rise and fall, at the end
of lochs, and move over beds which are covered and bare at high
and low water. This debateable land is accessible ; and
sections of the strata are laid bare by rivers, which cut
through the sand when the tide ebbs. The strands are muchfrequented for various purposes, and their nature is familiarly
known. In winter, flat punts navigate the rising tide in pur-
suit of ducks, and in summer to spear flounders. The sands
are frequented at low tide for like reasons. Men come to dig
for cockles, and lugworms, and sand-eels ; and to shoot birds
which feed along the ebb. So the changes which take place
on the surface, the form of sea-work, the formation of beds of
silt beneath the upper surface, and the movements which pro-
duce these changes, all come to be known to those who frequent
the strand.
In calm weather, the flood-tide rises quietly, because it is
working up hiU. The water makes little disturbance at the
bottom, and moves chiefly at the top. It seems to creep up
the wet sloping sand, and even ripple-marks remain uuin-
340 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
jured. Shoals of flounders and mullet creep up with the
water, shrimps and other creatures caper about as thick as
summer flies, gulls are busy, and ducks and geese trumpet
and sound their notes of triumph and contentment as they
fight and feast, and follow^ the flood. But when the whole flat
is covered, no perceptible change has taken place in the silt-
bed. It is different w^hen the ebb begins to fall outside. Then
a fluid wedge of some square miles of water, from an inch to
twelve feet thick or more, begins to slide bodily down the
beach, and the whole surface is moved from the high to low
w^ater Hue. The fish seem to know what is about to take
place, and there is a regular stampede of retreating flounders
soon after the ebb begins. Most of them get off safe ; but every
tide some lingering glutton w'ho has stayed to gobble up an
extra lugworm is caught, and patters out his life upon dry
sand, or is caught and eaten up by some other glutton.
The thin edge of the wedge produces little change, for the
shallow water moves quietly.
Deeper water raises the sand into ripple-marks, for the
w\^ter, as it flows, rises and falls over obstructions, and digs
hollows behind ridges, which it makes. So the general sur-
face of a bed of sand where the tide ebbs and flows becomes a
ripple-marked sloping plain between high and low water, and
the shape of the ripple-mark records the direction of the
stream. The plain is strewed with debris of various kinds.
There are shells, living and dead ; sea-weeds, feathers, dead
birds, fish, land plants, drift-wood from the ocean and from
the land ; leaves ; black peat dust which settles in the trough
of ripple-marks on white sand ; dust and dry sand which the
wind blows over the wet sand. There are tracks of all the
creatures which move about upon the surface and under it
;
men, horses, cows, sheep, deer, hares, rabbits, rats, mice, eagles,
FLOATS—TERRACES— NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 341
swans, crows, gulls, waders, linnets, flounders, crabs, shrimps,
worms, mollusks. All these, and many more, may be tracked
upon a single Highland strand amongst the tracks of waves.
But a short distance outside low-water mark, there is
always a steep bank over which the retreating water drops
the sand which it sweejjs from the beach. The water forms
a terrace, whose top is the strand, and whose side is a talus
of fallen sand dropped under water.
The ebb which flows over this bank falls upon the bottom
outside, digs a trench below the rampart, and raises a bank
which throws the retreating water upw^ards, and so causes a
peculiar swirl upon the surface. The water so raised, when
it falls again, digs another hollow, and raises another heap,
and another greasy swirl appears upon the surface to show
that the current is rising from the bottom again ; and so the
zigzag movement between the surface and the bottom, which
produced ripple-marks at one depth, produces larger mounds
and hollows of the same pattern in deeper water.
The larger, deeper, and swifter currents, which move out-
side, are marked by large swirls, which prove that water is
acting in the same way upon large banks in the main chan-
nels through which the tide flows. When a " race" is watched
from a hill, or a ship's mast, on a fine day, it is easy thus to
trace the outline of banks which lie far below the surface,
where cod and turbot delight to dwell, and where herrings
become the prey of solan geese. Soundings and fishing-lines
test these conclusions.
^founds which the ebb makes in shallow water become
})ermanent. Sea grass (sostera) springs up at the bottom,
arrests the moving sand, and impedes the flow of water.
Shells burrow about the roots of this green sea-meadow, like
snails in a hay-field ; mussels weave themselves into a living
342 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
mat, aud hold the mound fast. Then all the endless forms
of animal and vegetable life which fill these sea-lochs take
their position upon the newly-formed land under the waves ;
and the bottom of the loch retains its outline till some great
storm breaks it up.
But if this sea-bottom now rises, the j)eculiar form which
it has taken will long endure to tell where water ebbed and
flowed ; it will last till some other mechanical force disturbs
this packing of silt upon rock-shelves.
It often happens in these sea-lochs that bits of turf come
down with the rivers, and get stranded on the beach. Grasses
sometimes take root, and so anchor the turf in the sand.
There it remains, a small green island in a barren waste.
It is like a sea-plant, or a stone under water in a current
laden with silt. It is sometimes covered, sometimes bare,
but whether it is under water or air, it is always ready with
a net of roots and blades spread out to catch dust or mud,
moved by wind or water. The stranded turf gathers and
grows larger, and its crop of sea-grass flourishes and spreads,
and gathers more sand and mud, till at last a grassy mound
is only covered by the highest tides. But each of these dis-
turbs the sand which the growing net is ever ready to catch;
so at last the bank becomes a low hummocky plain full of
holes, the result of the action of water and the growth of
plants—a counterpart of the growth of land which is going
on under water in the loch, and in the channel outside. This
is " silting up." The writer watched the growth of a bank
of this kind for many years, and this was the manner of its
growth.
But close to this Ijank, on dry land, was a terrace of gravel
of the pattern of the sand terrace, under water, in the loch;
and further inland were other larger terraces of coarser gravel
:
FLOATS—TERRACES—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 343
all of the same shape and pattern, and all packed upon rock-
shelves. These are called raised beaches.
But if the rocky foundation upon which these terraces of
shingle all rest were sunk far enough to account for these
sea-forms, then great ridges of bigger stones, and of a different
pattern, packed on the hills, would be explained. These last
are like boulders which gather on sea-beaches on exposed
parts of the coast ; and they would again be exposed in their
present position if the land were to sink so far as to change
low lands into sounds, with beaches of shingle, gravel, and
sand.
Scotch estuaries are then filling up by the deposition of
silt, and the growth of plants ; but the form of the arrange-
ment of similar materials about Scotch lochs seems to place
it beyond doubt that land has risen very considerably in
Western Scotland. Shells prove the rise. Above the sea-
level, at various heights, are beds of sea-shells in sea-sand
beneath peat-mosses ; but beside terraces of gravel, and ridges
of boulders, which can hardly be distinguished from those
over which the tide now ebbs and flows.
But these Scotch terraces, like the Scandinavian terraces,
rest upon ice-ground rocks ; and there are great beds of large
stones, and single boulders, perched high up in Scotch hills,
as in Norway. The terraces were all formed after ice-gi'ooves
were made, and the last Scotch glacial period seems to have
ended with the rise of land, which lifted the highest terrace
out of water.
These are familiar examples of marks which show an
existing sea-level :— L shelves cut in rock, and terraces of
cliips packed under water. The arrangement of old chips in
Scotland and Lapland may be compared with this modern
sea-work. The ice-lever will be mentioned below.
344 DENUDATION—FEOST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
" 111 1851, June 17th, started for the north ; crossed from
Hull to Christiania, drove over the FiUe Fjeld to Bergen, and
steamed to Hammerfest, intending to go to Spitzbergen or to
the Tana. At Hammerfest (chap, xix.) found that a yacht
party had started for Spitzbergen, and had been driven back
by impassable ice and heavy weather ; so gave up a scheme
for that bout, returned to Alten, and crossed the fjeld to the
Tana, to fish for salmon instead of walrus." The following are
condensed extracts of a journal which was then kept with
tolerable regularity :
—
'^ Jvly 7th,—At 9 got under weigh from Bosekaap, and
overtook the luggage-horses at Elvebaken. Our guide, the
Lapp Lgendsmand of Ivarasjok, was a very intelligent little
fellow, who spoke Norsk well, and who was delighted to teach
odd scraps of his own language. We marched ahead, mynew comrade following upon his third horse, carrying his
gun. I did not carry mine, for 1 was told to expect a fifty
miles' walk, and I was out of condition.
" After passing a couple of small rivers, we mounted about
1500 feet through a picturesque wood, growing amongst large
stones and rocks, to the fjeld. At the first patch of snow,
the guide, who, like the rest of us, was streaming with perspi-
ration, stooped, made a hole in a snow-wreath with his hand,
and drank snow-water greedily. Thinking he knew best,
followed his example, and felt much better for a delicious
drink. Our way now led over the same hill ^\hicll I had
passed in 1849, on a memorable bear expedition.
" It is all ice-ground and strewed with boulders. The
direction of movement on this top was from the north-east-
ward, for the broken side of the rocks was towards us as we
walked.
" The views, looking back to the Kaafjord Mountains, were
FLOATS—TERRACES—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 345
very fine. The wind was cold on the top, and we had a pretty
smart shower, followed by a little mist, in the midst of which
we took to shooting golden plover. The weather soon cleared,
and we got to Eogijanri, a small lake, where we halted for two
hours to dine, and let the horses graze upon a patch of grass
which flourislies there—distance, twenty-seven miles by guide's
reckoning ; thirteen by pedometer. Off at 5.40. Heard some
reiper calling, and saw a skeleton tent with winter stores,
left by the fjeld Finns. These little wandering mortals are
all at the sea-coast, to save their deer from an insect which in
summer stings them in the nose. My guide told me that the
deer would go of their own accord if they were not taken;
and in Sweden I had been told that the deer go to the snow
in summer for the same reason. Here, in the latitude of Jan
Mayen, there are no snow-tracts in summer.
" Marched on through mist again, taking an occasional
shot with H.'s gun at golden plover, reiper, and ducks. H.
took a shot at his pointer, who coursed everything that rose;
and Chance, howling, vanished in the fog. We never saw
him again till we got back to Alten, where we found him
in excellent health and spirits. To see his tail go down when
he heard his master's voice once more, was a proof that pointers
can remember.
" The country here was as dreary as well could be. H.
said it was worse than the Arabian deserts. Great piles of
washed stones lay in ridges, which stretched for miles. There
was hardly reindeer moss on the bare ground—nothing for an
animal to graze on ; but still, on close inspection, there was a
harvest of small mountain flowerets springing up. The snow
had just melted, and some patches still remained.
" About 10 the sun broke out for a moment, and showed
us some high snow-capped mountains to the left (north).
310 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
They peered through the mist, and vanished, and soon after
we began to descend into a valley full of dwarf willow. Here
was a colony of mountain-foxes, but the inhabitants were not
to be seen. The grass upon their domicile was like a bit of
an English hay-field. The mosquitoes now began to come
about us in myriads, and by the time we got to Boiobaske, at
1 in the morning, we were followed by a thick cloud of blood-
thirsty living creatures. We pitched our tents beside a little
burn, had some tea, and turned in at 2.50.
" Going twelve hours ; thirty miles by pedometer ; fifty-
one by the guide's reckouuig.
" Miles in this country are Peneculam (dog's bark), as far
as a dog can be heard to bark in still weather.'"' I am in-
clined to believe my pedometer, for distance, time, and pace,
agree so far.
" July 8th.—Got into the burn and lay down in the
water, and after this bath felt quite fresh. I had galled myheel yesterday, and was tired when I lay down. Once I
awoke, and thought it was raining, but found that the noise
was caused by midges rattling against the top of the tent,
driven before a slight breeze. The poor brutes of horses
were thickly covered as by a gray blanket ; I never saw such
swarms. Up at 11 a.m., off at 12.40, and walked over the
fjeld to a bare place where we called a halt for two hours.
Thence on to a rising ground from which there was a giand
view, back to the Kaafjord Hills, and over a big lake, Jes-
jauri, which empties itself into the Tana and the Arctic
Ocean. Crossed a few bogs, but small ones.
" At one place, where the ground was paved with a mass of
loose boulders, and where I had some difliculty in picking myown steps, the cavalcade looked very picturesque. The little
* Ddgs (Id li:iik in Lapland, for all that has been said on the subject.
FLOATS—TERRACES—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 347
guide in his quaint blue frock with the many-coloured facings,
his square pillow of a cap, brown leggings and bags of shoes,
stood on the top of a large stone, with his long brown hair
floating behind him in the breeze, while he pointed the way
with a long birch pole which served him for a walking-stick.
The other men were scattered about amongst the stones,
hauling at bridles, and talking Quainish to the horses ; and
the beasts stepped carefully and slowly from stone to stone
like goats ; while H. and I, perched upon a high rock, watched
them with astonishment, (These stones were rounded, and
most of them of very large size.)
" From this point we crossed the most barren desolate
country I ever saw ; but it was flat and firm, and we got on
famously. At midnight, we halted in a Scotch mist, and
pitched beside a small lake upon a fine smooth turf in a
pretty little rocky glen. Made a fire for smoke in the tent-
door, and sat watching the men seated round it, while we
drank tea and smoked. It was a pretty scene. Twenty-one
miles by pedometer ; thirty-five by guide.
" July 9th.—Eained heavily. I slept in H.'s tent to let
the men get under cover, and all morning the rain kept
sprinkling my face through the canvas. Slept soundly
nevertheless till noon, when we got up. Because it was still
raining, went out to fish in the lake ; killed twenty-four gre}-
ling about one pound in a very short time ; stewed, boiled, and
fried for all hands ; and at 3.40 p.m. packed up, and set off
because it got fair. There is no such thing as night here at
this season.
" The country to-day very like Sutherland. Conical hills in
the distance were glittering in the sunlight which shone upon
the hoary shining reindeer moss ; lakes were everywhere, and
the near ground was brown moss and peat covered with low
348 DENUDATION—FKOST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
willow brush. The shadows of clouds chased each other
over this wide landscape ; and barren as it was, it looked
very pretty and very like a Scotch moor in spring.
" Halt at the first house we have seen. It is a mountain
station for winter travelling, kept by an old fjeld Finn and
his wife, who get forty dollars a year and provide travellers
with wood, water, and shelter. The old fellow had a brown
face wrinkled like scorched parchment, a gray beard half
grown, and clothing composed of deerskin, cloth, and sacking
made up into the semblance of a pesk. His hair was long,
and his head-gear a blue cap trimmed with mangy fur. His
wife was nearly as strange as he was, and her head-gear was
the Tana cap, which is like the shape of an ancient Greek
helmet. A foundation of solid birch-wood is covered Avith
scraps of cloth and ribbon of many colours, carefully arranged,
and sewn together as artfully as a Paris bonnet ; but the
thread is sinew.
"Eeached Karasjok summer-farm and the Tana at 3 in
the morning.
" The country for the last part of the way getting prettier ;
the wide glens were clothed with high birch brush, occasional
firs, mountain ash, and other trees ; while the Tana was to be
seen winding through this green woodland, backed by the
gray fjeld.
" There were lots of birds flying about. Whimbrel and
plover screamed and whistled at us while we passed, and we
killed several. Saw a whimbrel light on a tree, which seemed
a circumstance worthy of note. Twenty-one miles by pedo-
meter ; twenty-eight by the guide's account."
This fjeld, which is the high ground at the northern
extremity of Europe, and cut off from the rest of Scandinavia
by the valley of the Allen, is a rolling plateau raised about
FLOATS—TERRACES—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 349
2000 feet above the present sea-level. The rock is scantily
covered with soil, and in summer it is free of snow, so the
form of rocks is clearly seen.
There is a steep side to the westward, and a general
slope towards the Tana basin on the east. The steep western
side is deeply furrowed by rocky glens, which have the form
of glens in which glaciers are found ^^—^, and which retain
marks of sliding ice (see cuts, chaps, xiv., xv., xvi., etc.)
The high lands are ground also -^-^; and rounded boulders
are thickly strewed over the whole country—singl}^ in ridges,
and in closely-packed masses. The whole land bears these
sea-marks.
A few isolated hills rise above this upper level, and these
are generally conical or rounded A ^~^- Steep jagged peaks,
cliffs, sharp ridges, and broken rocks are rare, except at the
sea, where cliffs are visibly crumbling and falling down.
But if all this tract were now sunk to the level of erratics
on watersheds—say 2000 feet only—then the Arctic Ocean
would be joined to the Gulf of Bothnia, and Scandinavia
would be a long island crossing the Arctic Circle, as ancient
geographers supposed.
If in a map of the northern hemisphere the circle 50° N.
be likened to the tire of a wheel, with meridians for spokes,
and the pole for an axle, then the mountains of Scandinavia
cross spoke 20° E. diagonally from N.E. to S.W.
The high coast of Greenland crosses 20° W. in nearly the
same direction.
In Eastern Asia similar ranges of high land cross meri-
dians from 180° to 120° E. ; and 60° E. nearly coincides with
the Ural Mountains, which have a counterpart in the high
coast of Western Greenland, about 60° W.
Of all the great mountain-chains in these northern high
350 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
latitudes, only one trends from N.W. to S.E. ; all the rest trend
from KE, to S.W. like spokes set awry.
If Scandinavia were a long island, instead of a peninsula,
it would be placed on the world as the opposite coast of
Greenland is now placed ; and it would be exposed to the
same currents if it were similarly placed.
At page 28 is a diagram which shows how winds
move over sunken land ; it is fair to infer that the sea would
move in similar curves if it were deep enough. On the coast
of Greenland a cold arctic current now describes a diagonal
curve along the Eastern Greenland coast, and there a glacial
period now prevails. If the cold water, in flowing S. or S.W.
(see chap, x., woodcuts, etc.), split upon the northern end of
Scandinavia instead of the northern end of Greenland, there
would, as it seems, be an arctic current and a glacial period
at 20° E. instead of 20° W.
But if a Baltic arctic current Howed down towards Eng-
land, the Greenland arctic current is an engine which is
sufficient to account for denudation and transport of chips to
a vast amount, and it is an existing cause fairly to be admitted
into any argument.
In order to prove this Baltic current, the first step is to
show that the isthmus at the head of the Gulf was in fact
under water during a glacial period, and boulders, perched
blocks, osar, kames, and ice-marks, which are not marks of
land-ice, seem to prove that this isthmus was under water.
The lowest sea-mark in a rising series must always be
the plainest, because it rose last. The highest must be
liardest to recognise, because it rose first, and is the most
weather-beaten, by causes which operate on shore. So marks
of elevation near the shore are the best for illustration.
The elevation of land in Scandinavia has been demon-
FLOATS—TERRACES—NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA. 351
strated, but only after a controversy whicli brought out the
facts. These are stated with great clearness in the 30th chapter
of the 9th edition of Lyell's Principles of Geology, and manyof them are referred to in Tlic Antiquity of Man. The fol-
lowing are places where shells have been found :
—
Feet.
Kv.reil, attached to rock (Lyell) . . . 100
Uddevalla, beds of shells and shells adhering to rock 200
Trollhattan, in digging the canal, about . 200
Northern borders of the Wenern See, near Lake Eog-
varpen, fifty miles from the sea . . 2 00
Southern shores of the Malar, seventy miles from the sea ?
Sodertelje . . . . . 100
Stockholm ..... ?
Cpsala ..... 100
Ge/e ...... ?
Sarpshory, twenty miles inland . . . 450
CAm^i'aHza, adhering to rock . . . 186
Drontheim, and its neighbuurhuod . . ?
Bodo, about . . . . . 50
Troraso, imder the town, aliout . . . 50
North of Norway, according to Strons . . 400
South-east coast, according to Keilhau . . 600
Finland ..... ?
Terraces, perched blocks, and such forms, are associated
with sea-shells at the present sea-level, and as high as 450
and 600 feet. If the same forms count as sea-marks where
shells have not yet been sought or found, they mark a level
of 2000 feet at least.
Shelves at about and below 150 feet are seen on the whole
coast from the steamer, and can be traced round the head of
the Tana Fjord on both sides of the river. According to Cham-
bers, who measured them, three conspicuous marks on the
bluff" at Quain Clubbe are bQ, 65, 155 feet above the sea. There
is a terrace of erosion at Trondhjem 522 feet high. Terraces
352 DENUDATION—FROST-MAEKS—LAND-ICE.
ill Giilbrandsdal are higlier tlian the watershed. If sandy flats
be the flat tops of terraces, they rise to the watershed of Lap-
land, and boulders are perched on the highest land in this tract.
From July 9th to August 14th, 1851, we explored the
Tana river, and fished. On the 15th we embarked in an open
boat with a big lug-sail, and started from the river mouth
with a crew of three fishermen. We sailed outside, round
the North Cape, and got to Hammerfest on the 19th, after a
rough voyage. On the 21st we sailed again in a smaller boat,
and reached Alten on the 26th.
In June 1862 this country was again visited with another
comrade. AVe drove and steamed along the usual route to
Hammerfest ; sailed thence in a fishing-boat; passed inside the
island, whose northern point is the North Cape ; crossed
the isthmus at Hopseidet, inside the peninsrila which makes
the most northern fast-land in Europe, Nordkyn. We landed
at the mouth of the Tana, fished up to Karasjok, and walked
back seventy-three miles by pedometer, over the fjeld to
Alten, whence we returned to Trondhjem, and made several
trips about the south-western fjords. During these two
northern trips we lived in the open air, sleeping in tents,
or open boats, or under a bush, and feeding chiefly on fish
and game, coffee and biscuits. We questioned the wandering
inhabitants about their country, and like them wandered from
place to place, fishing and shooting wherever there was a
chance of sport. We explored one big northern river, worked
up small rivers, visited lakes, climbed hills, scrambled through
woods and bogs, and landed on points and islands in the fjords
and straits through which we passed.
Thus, from personal knowledge or trustworthy accounts,
the general features of a large tract of bare rocky country
to the north and west of the (Julf of Bothnia, between 66° and
FLOATS—TKKKACES—NuRTlIEKN SCANDINAVIA. 353
71° N. latitude, and 20° to 30° E. longitude, came to be
familiarly known. It bears marks of ice and sea-marks *
In the same latitude, on the coast of Greenland, is a country
so blocked with land and sea-ice, that the coast has rarely been
visited, and great part has been left blank in the Admiralty
chart of 1859. Further west is the tract where the north-
west passage is barred by perpetual ice.
In Scandinavia the climate is peculiar. In June, July,
August, and September—especially during six weeks, when
the sun is up all night—whenever the sky is clear, the heat
in the day is excessive, and the nights are like summer even-
ings. But when north and east winds blow, and the sky is
covered ; Avhen the sun dips under the sea horizon, or even
hides behind a hill, the temperature and climate change sud-
denly. A fisherman sometimes discovers that his flies are
caked with clear ice, like flies in amber ; and a traveller upon
the high ground, who has been sweltering in tropical heat in
a glen, often meets a hill wind that seems to chill the very
bones. Nothing but a reindeer frock and smart walking will
keep out the cold, which is always lurking near these warm
northern lands. It is clear that a small change would Ijring a
glacial period from the north-east, where Jack Frost lies in
wait ready to pounce, and seize all Scandinavia with his icy
claws.
If the barrier of land which now shuts out the Arctic
Ocean were sunk, the enemy's ice-fleet might sail down
the Baltic, and so re-capture Scandinavia, and perhaps the
British Islands ; by icing the sea, and shutting out the sun
with a flying army of clouds.
* According to the opiiiiuu of Celsius, and the statements of ancient geo-
gi-aphers, Scandinavia was an ishind after the time of Pliny and before the ninth
century.
—
Lyell, p. 52.
2 A
,354 ItENUDATION— FHOST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
It seems to be nbiiost certain that this dam was raised
from the bottom of au icy sea, which once flowed over the
highest of these hill-tops. The marked features of the isthmus,
from watershed to sea-level, are rounded hills, rochs, and
boulders. On the high fjeld, the long mounds, which in
Sweden are called " osar," abound. These are long mounds of
cla}- and stones, which run through bogs and over plains ; like
dams, dykes, and raised roads, which are constructed on
Holland, and other low wet countries. In shape and size these
resemble some " medial moraines," which may be seen in
glaciers in Switzerland, and large stones are sometimes perched
on them. These are water-marks. At p. 239, Antiquity of
Man, 1863, Sir C. Lyell describes a mound of this kind, which
he examined in 1834 near Upsala. On the top were huge
erratics ; within, the mound was made of stratified gravel and
sand, wath beds of shells, 100 feet above the present sea-level.
These are chips; the tool-marks tell the same tale. \\\
M'hatever direction strata may dip in this Lapp tract, the upper
edge of the fracture has been ground away by some force
which seems to have worked across the end of the mountain-
chain.
The Swedish side is terraced. Eivers flow smoothly for
a day's journey, and then rush down to a lower step. On
the Norwegian side the Alten and Tana are flat, sandy, and
sluggish in the upper reaches, and rapid only at a few stations.
Drift-beds all seem to rest upon a foundation of w^orn
rocks. These peep through sands, raise their dark heads in
mid stream, and rise high above the woods in gray moss-clad
hill-tops.
Some northern river deltas are great flats of sand over-
grown with brush, and almost impassable from bogs and old
river-courses. These are terraces in rock-grooves. They end
FLOATS—TERRACES—NORTHERX Sf'AXDTXAVIA. 355
under water iu steep sandbanks, wliich are always creeping
out into the fjords, and blocking up river channels.
On the landward side they are bounded by steep ter-
races made of big boulders, sand, and gravel.
These older steps can be traced at various elevations far
up into glens in the north, and at the other extremity of the
country in Southern Sweden.
These are flat-topped terraces, and their steep sides make
nearly the same angle with the horizon everywhere.
They are generally overgrown with grass and brush, and
hollows on the top are often bogs in which marsh plants
flourish, berries abound, and reiper congregate.
Where the general slope of the rocky foundation is small,
the terraces are broad and far apart. They surround the
river-basin like vast irregular steps in an amphitheatre ; but
because of their size, the system can only be well seen where
a wide view is got, and under favourable effects of light and
shadow. They rise high—how high is uncertain. On the
Western Norwegian side, where the hills are steep and
exposed, the steps are narrow, broken, and irregular. Manyterraces are often so crowded together at the end of a fjord,
or in a bay at one side, as to seem works of human skill.
The terraces near Quain Clubbe are good examples, but
there are many better. They are regular as terraces at Castle
Kennedy in Galloway.
Wliere the rounded hills are too steep for boulders to rest
upon rock, as in the case of the bluff at Quain Clubbe, the
rock surface is notched and broken at various levels, which
correspond to the level of drift-terraces in neighbouring hol-
lows. These seem to indicate an ancient sea-level, a line
where waves and drift-ice l^roke the surface which older ice
had made.
FLOATS—TEKKACES—NOKTIIEKN SCANDINAVIA. 357
Where a hill is exposed to the westeru or northern sea,
there are no terraces ; and the face often retains none of these
marks. Instead there is a cliff washed and undermined by
waves, or protected at the base by a talus of angular frag-
ments which constantly fall from the rock, wear away, and
roll upon the beach.
Terraces of •OSION AT yUAlN CLUBBE.
Ruck-Shelves.
August 24, 1S51.
In such places there are no old terraces, they have been
undermined and broken down ; but new ones are forming
under water, and older formations of similar pattern remain
near them in sheltered nooks. They are seen from the deck
of the steamer a long way south on the Scandinavian coast,
and they are common in Scotland on many watersheds.
Wliere a mountain-l;»urn has broken through a series,
as shown in the cut, their structure is seen, and they all
appear to consist of rolled stones, piled upon a foundation of
sloping rock which often bears marks of ice.
In Northern Scandinavia these stones, taken singl\ , have
358 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
the same forms on the tjekl-top, and in the sea. Taken col-
lectively, they form long points, osar, bars, ridges, terraces, and
beaches of the same pattern, on the fjeld ; in bogs, in deltas,
in glens, in shallow sea-bays ; at the end and in the midst of
deep fjords, and even under water so far as can be ascer-
tained. But boulders which rest upon hill-tops are rough
and weathered, while those which form terraces near the sea
are more like smooth rolled stones upon the beach.
The " parallel roads" and " muir chlach" (stone seas) of the
Western Islands of Scotland resemble the Scandinavian
terraces ; Init the scale differs widely, Scandinavian terraces
extend for hundreds of miles ; boulders in Finmark are larger
than Scotch boulders ; on the Swedish side, stones and terraces,
banks and mounds, are still larger ; they seem to surround
the whole country with great ramparts.
All these shapes seem to be results of similar action on
different scales ; but the engine which is still working be-
tween Spitzbergen and Newfoundland is big enough to account
for the biggest.
This record seems to prove that Northern Scandinavia
rose from the sea, that the peninsula was an island, washed
like Greenland by an arctic current, and like Greenland
smothered in land-ice, because of ice-floats in the sea.
In Lyell's Princiiilcs of Geology, a map sliows portions of
Europe, which have lieen under water in late geological
periods ; as proved by evidence which cannot be disputed
—
such as the discovery of sea-plants and sea-shells buried in
drift on shore. The dark water-line might be carried from
40° E. to 20° E.—from the shores of the White Sea to Kauto-
keino—if there be any truth in marks which are counted as
sea-marks in the plains of Sweden. A pedestrian, intent on
his dinner and his journey, has no time to dig for shells;
FLOATS—TERR.VCKS—NOUTHEUX SCANDINAVIA. 359
but sea-shells will no doubt be found on the ridge when they
are sought.
If from Scandinavia we pass to the neighbourhood of the
Greenland current, the same marks appear in low grounds in
Iceland, Greenland, and iSTorth America. All these stream-
marks and ice-marks occur in profusion up to a height of
nearly 3000 feet on the White Mountains and Catskill
Mountains in America. In the Himalayas, according to
Hooker, terraces occur about lat. 28° N., at a height of 15,000
feet above the sea, in places where they cannot have been
formed by lakes.*
In Scandinavia the rise of land has to be proved step by
step, slowly and painfully. Near Iceland islands rise and
sink, and their appearance and disappearance is recorded.
Close to Iceland is the Arctic Current, and beyond it a
glacial period in full operation as far south as Cornwall.
Whenever these marked forms on the watershed of the Scan-
dinavian isthmus and on the watershed of Southern Sweden,
are repeated—as they are on many watersheds in the British
Isles—it seems fair and reasonable to attribute them to a
working-engine which is big enough to account for the tool-
marks, the chips, and the packing, if only dry land were
within reach of the ocean-current, and the ice-floats, and
levers.
* Vol. ii. p. 119, Hookbv's Hi/iialayaii Journals, 185i.
(MIAl'TEK XXIII.
DENUDATION If)— KKOST-MAKKS 13—LAND-ICE 12—ARCTIC
CURRENT 1— I-'L(X\T.S 3 SI'ITZI'.ERGEN, ETC.
Some years a.uf), a wandering sjjortsnian, wIkj was seeking I'or
wild reindeer on tlie nujuntains wliicli Innn in Eonisdal, fell
in with a spoor which recorded a tragedy. At one place on
the wide, stony, gray Ijeld, a broad hill-side was covered
with a white sheet of last year's snow. Where the stones
ended, at the edge of the snow, was the spoor ; and it was
followed down hill. At first it was hard to make it ont.
A train of creatures rushing furiously had trodden the same
path, and stamped out footprints ; but gradually the tracks
grew clearer. Here were the large deep footprints of a big
splay-footed deer ; the toes wide-spread, and tlie feet far apart.
Here a big heavy stag had turned off alone, galloping with all
his miglit. Further on, another reindeer had branched off and
lied ; and so the spoor branched and spreati, and showed
wliere a herd of deer liadHed and scattered. At last there
remained the plain spoor of a large and small set of hoofs,
and the seal of eight great paws. An unsought spoor had
been found, and it marked out a straight line of blue dots in
the white snow. It was easy to read that record. Downtlu;
hill the wild hunt had swept furiously ; the i)rints were deep;
the spaces wide ; and bits of sparkling crisp snow were
scattered on the suiootli glittering crust. The ])ace was
killing. rresenlly the line of dots took a sharp turn and
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—SPITZRERGEN, ETC. 361
Split ; and there a tuft of deer's liair, and a deep dint in tlie
snow, marked the spot where four big paws ran the string of
the bow ; and four little hoofs went off alone. Where the
four big hoofs and eight great paws met again, was another
big dint, and the spoor was lost in a mass of confusion. Twowolves had coursed a herd of reindeer ; they had singled out
a hind and calf ; the leading wolf had turned and caught the
hind, and had pulled her down ; the other had run the string
of the bow to help; there was a struggle for life, and the calf
had escaped alone. Lower down were more tufts of hair,
reddened snow, scraps of torn skin, flesh, sinews, and picked
bones—denudation worked by wolves' teeth—and a large sur-
face was beaten, and trodden, and strewed with chips. From
this spot eight paws had stamped two lines, side by side, for
a short distance ; and two great, round, gorged, hairy bodies, had
pressed their shapes into the snow twice within a hundred
yards. The wolves had eaten up the deer, and had eaten so
much that they could hardly walk oft" with the extra load;
so they had grounded in the snow ; they had stopped to rest
and lick their lips. At last the spoor went off the snow
towards the rough woods in Eomsdal, and there was end of
the record.
Short of seeing the hunt nothing could tell the story so
clearly as this spoor, because the marks were known. Short
of seeing ice floating along hill-sides, and over hill-tops,
nothing can tell their story so well as ice-tracks. But the
tracks must first be learned, and the way of the creature
studied. For one who has never seen the tracks of deer,
wolves, and ice, there is no record ; for one who knows
something of the nature of air, water, and beasts, tracks are
plain ('\'erywhere on snow and rocks.
If a sportsman wants to know whence the creature
3G2 I )ENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAN D-ICE.
wliicli matle the S2)oor came, he must run from toe to heel
—
from effect to cause—backwards. If he wants to catch the
creature, he must follow from heel to toe—from cause to
effect—forw\ards. The way to catch the wolves was to beat
the woods in which they had their den.
The den of Jack Frost is in the north, so the cover to beat
for the reason of his old tracks, lies northwards or upwards
to the place where Jack Frost lives ; or southwards and
dowTiwards, after his two cubs land-ice and ice-floats.
In order to account for some of the marks which are
foimd upon Scandinavian hills and watersheds, an engine of
large size must be found ; and one is to be seen at work very
near the North Cape.
If nothing is known of a river, it is best to explore it
from delta to source. From a model in a tea-tray (chap, xiii.)
land-ice and its marks have been tracked up hill from Bergen,
through Western and Northern Scandinavia : but in following
the track of land-ice from sea to cloud, the spoor of larger
game was crossed in the mist. The way to escape from mist
is to follow running water ; the following pages follow the
Arctic Current. The path lies down hill from snowshed and
glaciers to the sea, and to a general polar system, which
consists of land-ice and ice-floats moving southwards, at the
sea-level.
Part of one arm of the sea-monster, whose spoor was
crossed in Scandinavia, may be followed and watched;part
of the polar ice-engine may be seen to work denudation at
Bear Island. No man has ever seen the whole system, but by
the help of ships, books, and maps, it is possible to learn
something of the jtlau of tlie engine which made the marks—
of the ways of tlie creature which made the spoor.
Abnost due nortli I'loni the North (';t[K' lie a cluster of
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—SPITZHERGEN, ETC. 363
islands called Spitzbergeu* The distance is about as far as
from Hamnierfest to Tornea ; from Tornea to Sundsvall;
from Sundsvall to Gotlieborg ; from Hamburg to Hull ; or
from Aberdeen to London. This cluster of islands passes 80°
N. ; and this land, within ten degrees of the North Pole, is
visited every year by crews of hardy Norskmen, in small
crazy vessels, which sail about July from Hammerfest, from
Bergen, and from Christiania. These vessels return in
autumn, laden with the spoils of the ice-world. They Ijring
trophies of sea-horses, seals, bears, and reindeer, eider-down,
and such-like commodities ; and with these, odours which
must be smelt to be understood. They do not amalgamate like
other evil smells, but seem to fly about the streets of Ham-
merfest singly or in flocks ; for they can be distinguished and
recognised when they enter a house, as they are wont to do at
all hours of the day and night. Xorsk merchants occasionally
join these expeditions for the love of sport and adventure.
One who lived near the North Cape, and who was at Bergen
in 1857, said that " he had been up further north than Parry
in one very fine open year." They spent one winter fast in the
ice near Spitzbergen, and when the sunnner thaw came, ice
vanished, and they got far away to a country where walruses
aboimded, and which he called Gillies Land. They pushed
* Views of IJcar Island and the Coast of Spitzbergen are given by Scoresby,
Arctic Regims.
A ^volume iwblislied by the Hakluyt Society in 1855 contains muchcurious information about Spitzbergen and Greenland, and gives references to
works fi-om wliich the history of arctic discovery in these and other regions
may be learned.
A list of 68 arctic voyages, from the ninth century to 1827, is given in the
narrative of Sir John Ross, of his discovery of the Northern Magnetic Pole,
etc. etc., in 18-29, 1830, 1831, 1833. Published, 1835.
A list of papers, relative to the search for John Franklin, etc. etc., is given
in a late index to parliamentary papers.
364 DENUDATION—FKOST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
on a long- way, and linally returned all sale to Hannaerfest.
He helieveil he had been very near the North Pole, hut he
took no observations. He sjioke like a man who meant to
tell the truth, but he may have s;\id the thing winch is not.
In July 1827, Tarry had got within eight degrees of the
North Pole. He liad only to walk as far as from London to
Thurso, but he was walking upon the sea ; the ioe was bad,
the surface rough, wet, and sloppy ; and as he walked north-
wards, the crust floated southwards. The attempt M-as aban-
doned, but the gallant sailor who made it thought it possible
to succeed by whitering in .Spitzbergen, and starting earlier in
spring.
Whether the sea is open or frozen about the North Pole is
an open question. According to one theory, there is an open-
ing which communicates with the interior of the earth ; but
that theory stands upon nothing, and cannot be disproved.
In June 1851, an English party in a yacht tried to reach
Spitzbergen from Hammerfest and failed.
They met great fields of ice moving south, and tried to
get round the southern end by sailing west. After running
nearly a hundred miles along the ice without finding any
. opening they gave it up, and sailed eastwards to the Tana.
In the same latitude, but in different longitudes, there was
very different weather. To the west, in tlie longitude of
Hamburg, and abcnit the latitude of the North Cape, sea-ice
was floating southwards ; snovv was falling ; there were
heavy gales, thick fogs, frost, and very cold disagreeable
winter weather.
To the east, on the fjeld, about as far off as the Isle of
Wight is from Galway, or Hamburg from Inverness, was the
weather above descrilx'd (cha]). wii.) On one side was wintci'
in June, colder ihaii any l^ngbsb I)ecciid»er ; on tlie oilier fine
AKCTrr CURKENT—FLOATS— SPITZI'.ERr.KN, ETC. 365
hot Juuci weather, l)ri;j;ht sniisliiiie, clear sky, l)alniy lu'eezes,
cows, pasture, milk, berries, good salmon-fishing, and civi-
lized men with excellent houses and gardens. In these
various southern flowers, roots, and herbs managed to grow.
In the houses were plants from the south of Europe, and
close to the North Cape a sleepy parrot lived in a cage for
many years.
On the 20th of August in the same year, 1851, the
writer, after sailing round the North Cape in an open fish-
ing-boat without suffering cold, or encountering danger,
boarded a Spitzbergen walrus-boat at Hannnerfest, which
had just returned loaded with odorous trophies. They sailed
in June after the yacht, and got to Spitzbergen without diffi-
culty. The ice-fleet had gone south with a heavy lading oi'
cold, shrouded in mist, and followed by winter and storm.
The walrus-1)oat was decked ; not much larger than an
English trawler, with a den below in which three or four
men could stow by crouching. The stench of oil, Ijlubber,
and very high animal remains of sorts, \\as only to he
equalled Ijy one of the cod-liver establishments on shore.
The greasy bloodstained craft was not tempting, and to sail
in her for sport seemed less agreeable than salmon-fishing
with Lapps. Without a yacht a Spitzbergen trip was not
tempting, and yachts cost money.
The men said that they had been to the furthest point in
Spitzbergen that had ever been reached by man ; that the
ice which stopped the yacht in June was Spitzbergen coast-
ice breaking up earlier than usual ; and that the coast liad
l)een clearer that year, than it had been within the memory
of the oldest fishers. These men described how they har-
pooned the walrus, and played him like a salmon, and how
he sometimes fought for his life.
3GG DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—T,.\ND-irE.
An old Hainmerfest sailor, who had been much in Spitz-
Ijergen, confirmed their stories and the account given by a
Norsk merchant who, in 1848, went to Spitzbergen from
Alten in a small schooner. Eeindeer, they said, were nume-
rous, and so unused to men that they ran great distances to
stare at a red shirt or a cap, or any unusual object. Instead
of stalking, some of the Inmters used to lie down, stick the
red cap on one foot, and " make manoeuvres." The deer soon
find out the danger, and get as wild and shy as deer elsewhere.
" White bears abound, and are as easily speared and alwut as
dangerous as a pig." They are very different from their browni
relatives in Norway ; for the men who despise, or affect to
despise, white l:)ears, speak with great respect of " Nalle." In
1856, the waiter was prevented from joining a yacht party in
a voyage to Spitzbergen, and he has never had another chance.
In 1856, Lord Dufferin reached Spitzbergen in an English
yacht ; and in 1858 and 1859, James Lament followed with
liis comrades. These gentlemen have published accoimts of
their adventures ; and they very clearly and forcibly describe
the appearance of sea and land at Spitzbergen, Jan ]\Iayen,
and Iceland. Part of the coast of Greenland, which corre-
sponds in latitude to the open sea between Hammerfest and
Spitzbergen, is described in two works by Scoresby.
These four books were written liy men who could well
describe what they saw. One was in search of whales and
discoveries, the others in search of sport ; and all three
sought adventure. The last had glacial theories and the origin
of species in his mind ; so his descriptions have a special
bearing on ice and ice-marks.
After sailing in open water from Hammerfest north to
Bear Island, Lord Dufferin's yacht, the " Foam/' encoun-
tered a barrier of packed ice fast to the shore, like
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—SPITZBERGEN, ETC. 367
English ice frozen round a stone. The edge of this float ran
east and west as far as the eye could reach. By sailing west,
and turning north whenever a bay in the ice gave a chance,
the " Foam" got to English Bay on the 6th of August, after
knocking about for eleven days.
Ice-floats then hang about rocky islands which come in
their way ; and if ever these islands become hills, there will
be a mark at the old water-level. A worn shattered notch
must be chopped out between wind and water, by waves
and ice, which are continually hacking and sawing at one
place in the stone.
Here, at the outset, is an engme at work, hewing marks
like those which are seen at Quain Clul)be (p. 357).
The French lady above mentioned saw this island clear
of ice, for the floats had not parted from their northern
moorings so early in the year. To her the coast seemed like
a giant fortification undermined by waves, and pierced here
and there by arches ; an amphitheatre with steps perfectly
regular, with a large audience of sea-birds in the reserved
seats. The interior of the island was a plain of melting
snow, with runlets of water flowing over it, like white ribbons
of silk laid upon white velvet.
The island is surrounded by reefs and shoals. It is com-
posed of beds of stratified sandstone, lime with fossils, and
coal ; and in due time the upper beds will he shorn off, and
the lower beds ground smooth, if the polar ice continues to
saw between mnd and water.
If the island rises, it will be like numerous islands on the
coast of Norway, a hill in a plain. It will be like a broad-
brimmed hat trimmed with snow-velvet and watered ribbon
;
like an island at Christiansand, or the " Dutchman's Cap" off
Mull in winter.
AIICTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—SPITZRERGEN, ETC. 369
The word-pictures show the work of sea-ice.
The woodcut represents a land-glacier on the slips, ready
to become an iceberg. It is filling up the whole of a valley,
nine or ten miles wide in the widest part, and descending
with one continuous incline for about thirty miles to the sea,
sweeping like a torrent round the roots of an isolated clump
of hills, entering the sea, and ending in a cliff about 120 feet
high.
The ground on the left is described as low, flat, black moss,
about half a mile wide, with tracks of reindeer and other
animals ; and dead men : the beach is strewed with drift
trees and wreck. The ridges and peaks are described as jagged
like a saw, split and crumbled by the frost, about 1500 feet
liigh, and very steep. In the extreme distance were moun-
tains peering above the surface of the ice, and they, too, are
peaks—not domes.
When the rest of the forms described are so faithfully ren-
dered, the talus-heap at the foot of the cliff, and the worn
rock or rounded moraine below the ice, can be recognised.
The peaks and talus-heaps are of the A pattern, the rock
in the way of the glacier is rounded ^—s. The flowing ice
has the sweejj of a river S, and the grooves which it makes
in the rock-groove ^—- must be S also.
By the author's permission this picture is copied from
part of a cut in Lord Dufferin's book.* It shows part of the
local glacier system of Spitzbergen, which is sliding into the
sea, and drifting southwards and westwards, together with
the polar ice which Parry found drifting southwards at the
highest latitude ever reached.
From Parry's point, as from u source, a stream of ice
floats ; and it washes an ice-bound coast at Spitzbergen.
* Letters from High Latitudes ; Loudon, 1857.
2 R
370 DENUDATION— Fi;( iST-MAl^ KS— LAND-K'E.
Take Laiiiont's description of the coast al)out 77" IST.
(p. 136) *
"We were still a few miles north of Black Point, and opposite a glacier
extending into the sea. Like all the other coast glaciers, with few ex-
ceptions, it is only an arm or branch of that vast body of solid ice which
occupies all the interior of the country, and which, like an enormous
centipede, extends its hundred legs down nearly every valley to the sea
on both sides of the islands.
" There are three glaciers on this part of the coast, between Black
Point and Ryk Yse Islands. The two southniost ones are not of any
great size, or in any way remarkable ; they each have a sea-front of
about three nules, and protrude into the water for one and a half or two
miles in regular semicircular arcs.
" The third or northmost of these three glaciers is one of the largest
and most remarkakle in Spitzbergen, or perhaps in all the world. It
has a seaward face of thirty or thirty-two English miles,t and protrudes
in three great sweeping arcs for at least five miles beyond the coast-
line. It has a precipitous and inaccessible cliff of ice all along its face,
varying from twenty to one hundred feet in height : pieces from the size
of a church doA\mwards are constantly beconung detached from this icy
precipice, and tumlde into the sea with a terrific roar and splash, and of
course render it highly dangerous to go near the base in a boat.
" The surrounding sea is always filled with these fragments of all
sizes and shapes, and many of them I have observed carrying large
(juantities of clay and stones imbedded in them.
" This great glacier is in three divisions ; the northern and southern
divisions are each quite smooth and glassy ; but the piece in the centre
is broken U]), and rough and jagged to a degree that is quite indescrib-
al)le. At a little distance it exactly resembles a great forest of pine-
trees thickly covered with snow.
" This part of the glacier must have undergone some disturbance,
arising either from its sliding over a rocky bed, or from its being forced
through a narrow ravine in the underlying hills. Whatever the dis-
turbing cause may be, it is actively at work still, because we frequently
* Seasons with Sea-Horses.
|- Al.out [hv (liiiicii.sions nf tho ^lacior wliicli faces Rprciigisaiidr in Tcolani
1 wlii.li i.s a iiiarwUous nl,j,vl to l,.„k iiim.u, tli.iu-h it is ii,,l in tli,' sea.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—SPITZBERGEN, ETC. 371
saw enormous slices of the smooth division split up and cave in towards
the disrupted part ; and there is a constant succession of tremendous
booming reports, exactly resembling loud and prolonged thunder, pro-
ceeding from these cracks, and from the whole of the rough part of the
glacier in general.
" I have questioned men who have frequented the Spitzbergen seas
for as many as twenty summers, and they all say that this glacier has
always presented the same appearance since they first saw it."
Spitzbergen land-ice is then a copy of Swiss and Nor-
wegian land-ice ; and the whole system radiates from the
highest land, but the glaciers work far out to sea. They
push along the bottom under water, till they get out of their
depth, and then they break off and swim. The system or
cluster of systems is perched on land, whose area is about
equal to that of Iceland or Ireland, or the block of land in
Southern Scandinavia described in chapter xvii. The particular
foot of the " centipede " described by Lament, may be likened
to a sheet of coarse sand-paper ; it is flat and pliable, a sheet
of wet ice with sand and stones frozen into it. But it is broader,
bigger, and heavier, than all the buildings in London and its
suburbs ; and it has been sliding over v^^et gritty rocks in the
same direction for twenty years, and probably for as manycenturies. According to the earliest accoimts of Spitzbergen,
the climate was much the same when the land was discovered
in 1596 by Barentz. If such an engine were planted in the
London Basin, and set to grind chalk, it would leave a notable
groove. The spoor of the ice-centipede must be conspicuous;
but the star-fish which stretches from the North Pole to Cape
Eace, and thrusts its arms through Behring's Straits and Baffin's
Sea, is bigger than the Spitzbergen centipede.
Of the hind claw of his ice-monster, Lamont says (p. 138),
"Of course this glacier has no visible terminal moraine
above water, but it may possibly have some connection with
372 DENI'DATION—FJtOST-MAKKS—LAND-ICR.
an extensive subinariiie liauk Avliieh lies o})posite the whole
length of the front of the glacier, and extends for fifteen or
twenty miles to sea. The soundings on this hank may average
fifteen fathoms, with a bottom of bluish clay ; it is a very
favourite resort of the seal and the walrus, pai'ticularly the
latter, for which I am led to suppose that the bank produces
in unusual numbers the molluscs on which they feed."
Of another glacier, it is said (p. 144), " A terminal moraine
made entirely of mud extends like a rampart along the centre
front of a small glacier, at a distance of about two miles."
The glacier slopes into the sea, which was partially frozen on
the surface ; but the mound had evidently been raised by the
great and immediate pressure of the glacier.
So Spitzbergen land-ice digs grooves and packs chips under
water, as an English coal-barge does when it slides off a mudhank in the Thames.
English ice may be seen to do similar work on a small
scale, and melted wax will so pack sand in a tea-tray. ]>ut
in Spitzbergen the land-ice floats away after it has done its
work at home, and the first thing it does is to breed a cold
sea-fog, and local storms.
The English yacht found it so in June 1851. Lord
Dufferin found the fog everywhere beside the ice in 1850.
Scoresl)y found it lower down. Lamont says (p. 46), " I ima-
gine that these ])rodigious masses of ice generate the fogs,
which, it is notorious, are nnich more prevalent here than on
the west side of the country." In every Spitzbergen luud-
scajjc, by whomsoever drawn, fogs are notable features.
Like a crab, a flounder, or an ink-fish, which knocks up a
cloud over-head while burrowing into sand or gravel under
water, the polar ice-star condenses a cloud of mist and snow-
crystals to hide in the dark from its foe the bright ^\'arm sun.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—SPITZBEKGEN, ETC. 37:^
The cold fog was tlie only thing which seemed to daunt the
Parisian dame, who ventured so far.
The ice-raft, thus built and launched, sets off at a rapid
pace, with its awnmg of gray cloud spread, and the next thing
it does is to cool air, sea, and climate. Wlien sailors dread ice-
bergs thirty degi'ees further south, their Ijest safegTiard is a
thermometer. An instrument has been constructed to ascer-
tain the direction in which this cold danger lies. It consists
of a reflector, with a delicate thermometer in the focus, and
by turning it in azimuth, the coldest point on the horizon is
detected. The presence of ice affects a thermometer at several
miles ; and the larger the quantity the greater is the cold.
In approaching the ice-floats winter is approached ; on leaving
them winter is left behind. The faster the floats travel the
further they carry their own climate.
The shock of a blow, and the mark made on rock, must
depend on the direction of movement, weight, and velocity of
the hard body moved.
The pace of an Alpine glacier, according to Forbes, and
the best authorities, is four feet in twenty-four hours at the
utmost. Incidentally, Lament gives the pace of the ice-float
and its direction.
"Two bull walruses hove in sight, floating rapidly by,
asleep on a cake of ice. The current was carrying the ice past
the island at the rate of five miles an hour, from north-east to
south-west."
So a maximum velocity of two inches an hour grows
to 316,800 inches per hour.
At page 127, Lamont mentions a small float of from six-
teen to twenty square miles, moving in one almost unljroken
sheet down a fjord, with a tide which was running " very
hard indeed." At page 125, similar ice-rafts, laden with large
374 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
stones, are mentioned. At 165, the rate of the Arctic Current
amongst the Thousand Isles is estimated at " seven or eight
miles an hour." On one occasion, six men pulling their best
could not move the boat ahead at Black Point.
So tlie power of a glacier on shore is nothing to the power
of the same glacier afloat.
Of the moving stream of ice-floats, many pictures have
been drawn by able hands ; but no one seems to have con-
sidered the .system as one great denuding engine.
The brave little Frenchwoman who went to Magdalena
Bay with Gaimard, and who compared rills of water flowing
over snow to wedding millinery, compared the ice-floats to
sparkling jewels.
Old Martens, in his Voyage to Spitzhergen in 1671, says, that
" the fairest blew that can be seen is in the cracks of these ice
hills." One piece was " curiously worked and carved, as it
were, by the sea like a church, with arched windows and
pillars, the doors and windows hung full of icicles on the in-
side thereof, the delicatest blew that can be imagined."
Others were of " other figures," " round and four-square tables,
with round and blew pillars underneath : the tables was very
[)lain and smooth at the to]), and white with the snow ; at
the sides hung down a great many icicles close to one another
like a fringed tablecloth ; I believe that near forty men might
have sat about it. I have seen of these tables with one foot, and
with two or three pillars, and abundance of scales swarm about.
The dishes that furnished this table were a piece of ice like an
horse's head and a swan ; 1 doid)t they were but salt." Tlu?
old Hamburger was surely very cold and hungry when he
wrote thus of churches and tables in the ice.*
* Old translation, 1694, from F. Martens' Voyage to Sintzbergcn. Repub-
lished by the Hakluyt Socic^ty, 1855 ;originally dedicated to Samuel Pepys.
ARCTIC CURHKXT—KLOATS—SPTTZBKUt ;F\, Kit '. 375
Off Jan Mayen, Lord Dufferiii (Irisli geiitk-niaii, artist,
sportsman, and sailor) saw diamonds and silver argosies—
a
kniglit on horseback clad in sapphire mail, a white plume
above his casque—a cathedral window with shafts of chry-
sophras, new powdered by a snow-storm—a smooth sheer clifl"
of lapis lazuli—a banyan tree, with roots descending from
its branches, and a foliage as delicate as the efflorescence of
molten metal—a fiery dragon in scales of emerald—" or any-
thing you please."
The British tars who sailed with Eoss were pleased to see
" the familiar emblem of a public house"—the lion and the
imicorn—and the broad shield of England, adrift in the sea
off Cape Farewell. The French sailors who sailed with
Prince Xapoleon saw ice, and danced the cancan. Lamont
—
the Scotch gentleman, sportsman, naturalist, and geologist
—
saw ice mushrooms and centipedes, caverns and ciystal
vaults, and noted geological facts into the bargain ; for which
he deserves special thanks, which are hereby tendered l)y a
traveller, who thinks he sees an ice-engine in a tea-tray. At
page 150, Lamont says
—
" The vast accuniulatiou of ice in the Spitzbergen seas consists
partly of flat tabular slab.s of all sizes, from that of an acre downwards?
wliich have composed part of the winter's growth on the shallow bays
and gulfs of the coast, and partly of rough irregular masses which have
become detached from the ice-cliffs of the glaciers.
" Some of these latter I have observed to be canying large stones
—
which, by the way, I have frequently mistaken for seals—and very many
of them are charged with such quantities of dark-coloured mud or clay,
that the sea is in places sometimes discoloured for many miles around
by their washings.
" This was one of the finest and warmest days I ever knew in Spitz-
bergen ; the thermometer was 55° in the cabin, and in the sun it was
actually hot. Tlie summer's warmth has had a perceptible effect upon
the ice, much of which we observed to be undermined, and honeycombed
370 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
or 'rotten' as the sailors call it ; it ahvuj's seems to decay fastest 'be-
tween wind and water,' so that enormous caverns get excavated in the
sides of the bergs.
" Nothing can exceed the beauty of these crystal vaults, which some-
times ajipear of a deep ultramarine blue, and at others of an emerald
green colour. They look as if they were the fitting abodes of mermaids
and all sorts of sea-monsters, but practically no animal ever goes into
them. The water dashing in and out through these icy caves and
tunnels makes a sonorous but rather monotonous and melancholy sound.
In moderately calm Aveatlier many of these excavated bergs assume the
form of gigantic mushrooms, and all sorts of fantastic shapes, but directly
a Ijreeze of wind comes they l^reak up into little pieces."
When an iceberg thus cai^sizes or Ijreaks up, the cargo of
mud and stones goes to the bottom ; it must there take the
sliape which rubbish takes on being shot over a pier. The
breakwaters at Plymouth and off Portland were so con-
structed, and their shape is a standard for rubbish-heaps shot
from ice.
This is a case in which a working model may be in-
structive.
A plate of ice loaded with sand and loose stones must
«b"o]) its load in the same way, whatever the dimensions maybe. In a small plate the ice gradually melts, .and mounds of
sand form themselves into conical heaps on the wet surface.
But as the ice-raft melts it loses the power of flotation, and
it becomes lopsided ; one edge sinks, and the flat surface
liecomes a sloping plain. It slopes more and more as the ice
melts, till the slope becomes so great that the deck-load slips,
and rolls to one side, and sinks the sunken edge stiU more.
Then the mounds slip and become avalanches, slide over-
board, sink to the bottom, and become mounds there. But
while rubbish is thus shot one way the float shoots in the
(opposite direction, and the rest of the deck-load is washed
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—SPITZBERGEN, ETC. 377
(jverboard an the raft slips tlirough tlie water. Ice relieved
from weight bobs up like a board and shoots off edgeways,
Ijecaiise there is least resistance in that direction. When
nibbish-heaps are thus shot eastward, flat ice shoots west-
ward, and the rubbi.sh at the bottom is deposited as a mound
with a tail stretching westward. The moimd may be conical,
or a long ridge.
Big snowballs rolled about in a garden, watered, kneaded,
and frozen, are like miniature glaciers, in that they consist of
air, ice, stones, earth, and sand. Set afloat in a glass tank
they are like miniature icebergs.
After a night's frost has hardened the surface into a tliin
crust, so as to fix the floats to the sides of the tank, and join
them togetlier by a flat ice-raft ; tlie system is a miniature
copy of the ice whose upper surface is described by arctic
voyagers. There are "berg" and "floe," and where the ice is
broken, there are "packs" and "hummocks ;" and the whole is
fast to the " coast" in a narrow space, as in sea or strait, or bay
or lake. The glass gives a section of the soHd cnist and fluid
core, and of the loose deposit which falls when the solid
melts. The copy is a working model.
According to the stone-load so is the depth at which bergs
swim. Of one mass, six inches deep, half an inch was above
water, or tV. Of one five inches deep, half an inch was in
the air, or tV. Of one three inches deep, fom'-tenths of an
inch rose, or 1 to Vs. If this proportion is made to fit the
dimensions of small icebergs, one 600 feet thick would show
50 feet ; 500 feet would show the same ; and 300 feet, 40.
The visible height of an iceberg is no certain measure of
its size. One may be almost pure ice, and float as glacier-ice
floats in sea-water ; another may be so freighted as to sink;
or it may float so as to ground at any depth. Moreover, the
378 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICK.
shape of the lump attects its lieight. In one case a sharp
peak may rise high, in another a blunt end may be upper-
most.
In these floating masses the centre of gravity is not a
fixture. It is constantly changing.
A\lien a heavy stone or a mass of ruliliish falls from tlie
end of one spoke in the wheel, that side Ijecomes lighter ; it
rises, and the wheel turns round. The system rolls in the
water till it recovers equilibrium. Icebergs constantly roll
over, and this seems to be a sufficient reason. The woodcut
was drawn from a model which was made as descril)ed, and
it worked in this wav.
On these and similar movcmients the shape and structure
of rubbish-heaps dropped from ice on a sea-bottom must de-
pend. The glass tank shows the structure of such mounds,
and it coincides with the structure of mounds of drift which
ARCTIC rURKENT—FLOAT^^—SriTZBEROEN, ETC. 379
occur in ice-ground countries like Scandinavia and tlie Britisli
Isles. The glass gives a section of the nibbish-heap whicli
fell through water from floating ice, and it shows that the
mound is roughly stratified. The coarsest and heaviest mate-
rials win the race to the bottom, and the rest follow and fall
upon them. The mound is conical, and a section of it shows
lieds of various materials, packed in conical layers. Gravel
goes straight to the bottom, sand follows, fine river-mud
hangs in still water for days, but mud settles at last, and it
forms the highest layer. In a stream such mud would travel
far.
The original shape of an iceberg does not affect the shape
of the mound which it leaves when it melts.
The woodcut was drawn from a model contrived to illus-
trate this point, and ascertain experimentally what shape frozen
rubbish-heaps would take in water.
A lot of various materials—fine mud brought from the
river Zambesi in Africa, sand of many kinds, and stones of
various sizes—were turned into a large dish with water on a
winter's day ; and when the lump was frozen, it was placed in
a glass tank fuU of water, and watched while it tha^ved. There
was more cargo than ice could lift, so the mass sank.
As the ice-cement became water, the silt crumbled and
fell. The angular mass became rounded, and took all manner
of strange forms. The rotting ice grew honeycombed ; and
like glacier-ice at the lower end, it was covered with sliding
dirt. Slowly and by degrees the ice vanished, and in its
place a rounded hillock of definite form loomed through a
yellow fog of suspended mud whicli hung about it, and floated
in water-cloiids for several days. The mud was thickest in
the coldest water ; thermometers marked 36° below, 39° above,
when the air was more than 40°.
380 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
The heaj) thus formed against a glass wall (see cut) was
conical ; but many cones had united to form one heap, and
the top was rounded off. The section was exceedingly com-
plicated, hut it was easy to understand the process l>y which
loose silt had assumed this contorted form. The heaviest silt
sunk fastest, the lightest came over all like a bed of snow;
but each fall made a separate system, and these beds mingled
and interlaced. The form thus obtained must be like the
reality, for the experiment is but a copy of nature. The
dimensions differ widely. In all books about these northern
regions, and all accounts which have been gleaned from men
who have frequented these seas, it is said that icebergs and
floes—pack and new ice—form islands as big as an English
county in winter ; and north of Spitzbergen, the winter ice-
field is supposed to equal the area of North America, unless
there be an open polar sea behind the ice-floats.
Lamont says—" After the end of August, the Arctic Cur-
rent entirely overcomes the remnant of the Gulf Stream which
has been struggling with it, so far successfully as to modify
its ))lighting influence on Spitzbergen during the preceding
mouths ; and the polar ice, aided by the increasing cold,
ARCTIC CL'RKENT—FLOATS—SPITZBERGEN, ETC. 381
comes down m such (|uantities as to defy the elfoits of the
now vanquished Gulf Stream to dissolve it. It rapidly sweeps
roimd the coast .... and Spitzbergen is enveloped
for the winter."
In spring, the pendulum s^vings the other way. The ice
breaks up and floats towards Jan Mayen, coasting along the
ice which is sliding off Greenland.
As in the case of land-ice, so in Spitzbergen old marks
abound on shore which suggest the marine engine which
made them.
Of the glaciers, Lamont says (p. 109)—
" It is wonderful
to observe how insignificant even mountains of solid rock are
compared to the enormous power of glacial action ! They
appear to melt and crumble into dust and mud like mole-
hills, in the gigantic grasp of the ' ice-rivers.'''
At another place, he speaks of a deep trench crossing a
plain of debris on shore, and its appearance suggested that a
lieavy floating iceberg had ploughed through the plain while
it was imder water.
As land-ice digs and grinds on .shore here as elsewhere,
so firth-ice, moved by the tide, wears the coast and the
bottom of hollows partially filled by the sea. As floats work
on this scale in firths and sounds -whose dimensions equal
Norwegian firths and Scotch lochs ; so larger floats, worked
by the Arctic Current, must plough mud and grind rock
\vhere they run agrormd.
AVhatever the direction of the movement may be, the
mark made must coincide with it. The glacier-grooves lead
to the watershed, the firth-ice grooves lead to the glacier
foot ; the grooves made by floats in the ocean-current must
coincide with the run of the stream, and here it runs from
north-east to south-west. So the tracks lead to the Pole.
382 DENUDATION—FK0ST-.MAKK8— LAND-ICE.
Ill 8pitzl)ergeu, as in Scandiiiavia, is evidence of a recent
change in the sea-level.
Drift-wood and whale skeletons are found high up on hill-
sides, amongst moss and rock ; reindeer and reiper, foxes and
travellers, walk about on an old sea-bottom where walruses
browsed, and where the drift-ice of the Arctic Current ran
aground and left its spoor.
With his wits about him, and ice-floats at hand, the
sportsman, who could see rocks and game, writes
—
" The surface of these rocks was much smoothed and polished, as
if by the passage over them of much heavy ice in bygone times. . . .
Tliere was not a particle of vegetation to be seen, and the aspect of the
country was bleak and sterile, and gloomy beyond description" (j). 148).
" This island, as well as all the other off-lying islets and skerries on
the south, south-east, and south-west of Spitzbergen (I do not include
Hope Island) is composed of a rough, coarse-grained trap rock, which
in places imperfectly assumes the columnar shape. These columns
seem very much shaken, as if ready to fall to 2:)ieces, and the tops of
the columns, as well as all the corners and protuberances, are nmchworn and rounded, as if they had been half made into boulders already.
They no doubt are so, for thousands of boulders, quite smooth and
rounded, and formed of the same rock, half cover the islands. These
are mostly of an average size of about a cubic foot, and very seldom
exceed two feet and a half in diameter. They are curiously packed
and levelled in some places, as if they had been roughly made into a
causeway for walking on by human agency. This singular appearance
1 conceive to have been given to them by enormous icebergs grazing
over and resting on the islands ere yet they became dry land, and acting
on the boulders like a roller on a gravel walk."
Amongst these " travelled ice-born blocks " were boulders
of granite and limestone, which came with the ice ; and
worm-eaten drifted pines, with their roots, which grew in
l^^uropc, Asia, or America, and landed in Spitzbergen after
AKCTIC CL'KRENT—FLOATS—SPITZBEIKGEN, ETC. 383
tiuatiug lialf round the world with the Arctic Current or the
Gulf Stream.
The most northern rock known— the shore from which
Parry set off—is granite ; a bit of it may have travelled to
the place where the tree left the shore, if it gi-ew on the
Rocky Mountains, and put to sea at New Orleans.
If there be such a thing as development, human philoso-
phers, who rose from apes and hope to become angels, can
neither fly like gulls, dive like seals, nor burrow like moles
now ; but during their brief stay in this bodily half-way
house, men can join facts to frame new ideas, and see with
mental eyes.
Beneath the mass of solid water, which now forms the
winter crust of the solid and fluid world about Spitzbergen,
lie beds of a stone which once flowed like water, and like it
crj^staUized and froze when it cooled. Stratified beds of snow,
which rose from the sea and fell from the air, rest on stratified
Ijeds of sandstone which fell through water upon beds wliich
are coal, and were land-plants. Underneath these are beds
of igneous rocks ; frozen stones which sunlight cannot melt,
but wliich w^ere melted under the earth, nevertheless. In
Spitzbergen, within ten degrees of the North Pole, are beds of
sandstone, limestone, and shale ; coal-seams, whin-dykes, hills
of columnar basalt, and granite hills ; and somewhere under
all these some mighty force is heaving and swelling upwards,
lifting the islands, as a whale lifts a shell on his rough hide,
when he rises to blow off the steam in the Arctic Cun-ent
amonost the ice-floats.
CHAPTEE XXIV.
DENUDATION IG—FROST-MAKKS 14—LAND-ICE 13—ARCTIC
CURRENT 2—FLOATS 4—GREENLAND, ETC.
Good descriptions of land and sea ice are given in the quaint
old book quoted above (p. 374). In 1671 old Martens described
what he saw, nearly two hundred years ago—ships, waves,
meteors, snow-crystals, sea-ice ; birds, beasts, and fish, and
how to catch them. A great deal has been added by later
writers, but very little of this account has been contradicted.
The same engines which Lamont describes have been at work
for 200 years at least in Spitzbergen.
The best-known book, and perhaps the l)est which treats
of arctic ice, is Scoresby's first volume.* It contains, in a con-
densed form, the experience of a shrewd, scientific, practical
observer, who had made seventeen voyages to the Spitzbergen
or " Greenland whale-fishery ;" and who seems, also, to have
read all that had then been written about his subject. INIany
suggestions made by Scoresby have been foUowed, many of
his predictions have been fulfilled. The sea does really pass
round North America ; the north-west passage exists, and it
is in I'act useless : he held that the polar basin was a frozen
sea ; and there is still every reason to believe that he was
right : the Arctic Sea is still unex})lored, though men have
been striving to pass throiigh it ever since a.d. 1500.
* An Account of the Arctic Regions, ivith a History and Description of the
Northern Whale -Ji^Jicry. By W. Scoresby jiuir., F.R.S.E. Edinburgli,
1820.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 385
The highest latitude reached by Scoresby was 18° 30'.
Parry got to 82° 40'. One sailed to the edge of a floating
crust of ice ; the other found the ice-crust on which he
walked floating south-west. Early Dutch whale-flshers assert
that they sailed to 82° and 83°, even to 89° 30'. In 1856 a
Norwegian asserted that he had sailed nearly to the Pole
(see p. 364). When Scoresby reached 81° 30' he found an
opening which extended east and west ; beyond 8° west and
19° east longitude. A similar crack might lead north to the
Pole, for the polar ice seems to be a floating crust. The ice
which breaks from the edge and comes past Spitzbergen is sea-
ice, not land-ice launched into the sea.
All round the arctic basin, between 70° and 80°, sea-ice
sticks to the brim, except about the North Cape of Norway,
where the Gulf Stream runs in towards the N.E., and keeps
the coast clear. From Nova Zembla to Bear Island and
Spitzbergen, the warm stream is bounded on the north by a
broken crust, which is working towards the south-west. The" north-east passage," and the transpolar passage, are as useless
as the " north-west passage," and for the same reason—the sea
is blocked by a broken moving float.
Between the shore-ice and the sea-ice ; between the lip of
the basin and the central floats ; the sea is occasionally open.
Kane found open water to the north of Greenland in 81° 20'.
Scoresby sailed in open water in 81° 30'. Barentz saw open
water, got to Nova Zembla, and perished on his way back.
Wrangell saw what he called a wide illimitable ocean from
Siberian ice.
It seems that the main body of North Polar ice is a brittle
fusible crust ; a movable solid floating on a liquid base
about 2000 miles in diameter ; raised above the sea-level
from four to fifty feet ; revolving with the earth ; free to
2 c
38G DENUDATION—FKOST-MAUKS—LAND-ICE.
move. It mends and grows in winter ; the edges break in
spritig, and the splinters rnn aground on the coast and move
off towards tlie south-west, through the widest opening in
the edge of the hasin which holds the polar sea. A prevail-
ing current Hows from the north-eastern point of Eussia
westwards, and in the Spitzbergeu sea flows out of the polar
basin from north-east to south-west, during nme months in
the year, if not all the year round. It moves at a vaiying
rate of from five to twenty miles per day, and sometimes
much faster near land (p. 373). It carries a vast quantity of
ice as far as Cape Farewell, round Cape Farewell up to Disko,
down to Newfoundland, and even to lat. 40°. The crust an-
nually carried south-west by this one ocean-river, and melted
in the south by the sim, is calculated to cover an area of
20,000 square leagues.
The fragments give some idea of the nature of the central
mass.
The ice-floats in the Spitzbergen seas consist chiefly of
" field-ice," " floes," and other varieties.
The " fields" cover an area of several hundred square
miles ; they are a hmidred miles long, thirty miles in diameter.
They rise from four to six feet above the water, and sink ten,
fifteen, twenty feet. Before July these floating districts are
covered with beds of snow from a foot to a fatliom in depth.
When the sun has power, the snow melts, and the surface
is wet, and covered with lakes and pools of fresh water.
The white plain is so compact and even that " a coach"
might drive over the ice, but the plain is varied by strange
liills and peaks. Hummocks of blue ice—thirty, forty, fifty
feet high—arc raised by pressure. Bits of crushed ice
are turned on edge;
great ridges and piles of ice are
formed above ; and "calves" are thrust under ; so the dej^th
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 387
of field-ico is often more than fifty feet. Fifty feet is as liigli
as the front of a London street. Field-ice floats with one
part above to eight below water, according to Scoresl)y's
experiments. Fresh-water ice is so hard as to " inflict a
wound like glass ;" it is so clear that lenses were made of
it, which melted lead, lit pipes, and burned the sailors'
fingers, to their great delight.
Incidentally it appears that ice which is fixed to the shore,
and drift-ice, is often covered with mud and gi-aveh AVhen a
swell comes, land-ice breaks adrift ; fields break, and become
floes ; and these, when still more broken, change into loose and
close " pack." AMicn the weather is warm, the " pack" gets
rotten ; when the freezing-point is passed, the frozen water
sinks to the sea-level, and the stones go to the bottom.
When the freezing-point is passed in the do^vnward scale,
ice rises from the sea.
A mass of loose crystals, which are called " sludge," form,
float, and join. If the sea is rough, the growth takes a form
wliich is common in pools in English rivers ; the sea is
covered with circular slabs mth uptiirned edges, wliich jostle
and gTind till they too join and form larger cakes. Whenthese imite, they form a rude ice-pavement of marine glass
mosaic. When the sea is calm, the growth goes on smoothly
from below. The rule of flotation holds good ;" bay-ice" lifts
one-ninth of its bulk above the sea, and joms pack to pack,
and floe to field, with new flat water-glass cement.
To these mended flats, with projecting edges, are joined
bergs, which slide from the land ; and on this crust a sheet of
snow is thickly spread,^ which adds size and weight. There
seems no limit to this gi'owth but the constant waste. The" small " icebergs about Spitzbergen are sometimes 1000
yards in circumference, and 200 feet in thickness. So the ice-
388 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
plane has stone points about 180 feet deep at least. On the
opposite side of Greenland bergs are 600 feet under water,
1500, 1800 feet thick ; 480 feet out of water ; three or four
miles in circumference. According to their shape, ^, ^, ^, or
i- is visible. They are like cliffs of chalk or gray marble
streaked with blue and emerald green, and with darker
colours caused by strata of earth, gravel, and sand. The
banks of Newfoundland are often crowded with them, and
some reach lat. 40°. At ^ of 1800 feet above water, a stone
in an iceberg might touch in 1543 feet.
The motion of icebergs and heavy ice is not much affected
by the wind. Wlien light drift is flying before a gale, and
dancing on the waves, the iceberg seems -to plough through
it like a fixed rock, or a moving island crashing through ice;
but it is only a heavy float movmg in the current, or stranded
on the solid ground.
Information as to the denuding work of this ice-engine
can be gathered from old accounts of arctic voyages only by
searching for pictures, and for facts mentioned incidentally,
and by drawing conclusions. Geology is but a well-grown
infant science after all.
Scoresby looked on the icebergs which Lamont and
Dufferin describe as puny specimens of their class. Of
land-ice work in Spitzbergen, Lamont first gave an estimate
(p. 381) ; but if hills "crumble in the grasp of ice-rivers " on
shore, the same engines must work faster when they go adrift.
Of Spitzbergen, Bear Island, and Jan Mayen, Scoresby
gives excellent descriptions and comprehensible drawings.
From these and from other authorities it appears that most
of the high peaks are like the aiguilles of Mont Blanc;
they are pyramidal, conical, or pointed ; weathered peaks
of the A pattern, with the structure of the rock picked
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 389
out in lines of snow. This bare high ground consists of
newly fractured rocks, and fallen fragments ; and the tool
which quarries the rock is the ice-wedge of frost. When the
full power is on in winter, stones, rocks, and wood rive and
split with loud reports. The stones so quarried follow the
same downwai'd path as alpine stones (chap, xii.) or iSToi'wegian
stones (chap. xiv. xv. xvi.) The hills are frost-marks, the peaks
and glens tool-marks of land-ice. Snow-slides, neve, and
glaciers, fill every hollow and conie ; we know now that they
carry the quarried stones, and that rocks " crumble in their
grasp." Incidentally, it appears that the glaciers are riven
and crevassed, and like Swiss glaciers ; for a sailor tumbled
in and was only saved by his elbows.
The lamiching is described. The ice-cliff awash in the
shallow sea, and the broken glacier adrift with its moraine in
the Arctic Current, are so described as to caU up pictures of
the real tiling which the \vriters saw ; but nothing is said
directly of the work which such an engine must do, when
it goes afloat and moves with great velocity.
According to Scoresby, the Spitzbergen drift moved S.W.
100 miles in a month ; 120 miles in 9 days ; 182 miles in 13
days ; 420 miles at 8y per day. In 1777 a whole fleet of 9
Dutch whalers was caught on the 22d of Jime. They first
drifted within sight of the Greenland coast about lat. 75^° N.
By the 24th Iceland was in sight ; by the beginning of October
they had drifted to lat. 64" ; and on the 11th the last ship was
overvN'helmed by the ice, and sank. Between 300 and 400
men were driven to the ice. On 30th of October they
separated ; the gxeater part took to the shore and tried to
travel, while the rest floated on a field of ice to Staten Hook,
where they took to their boats. A hundred and forty reached
the Danish settlements, on the west of Greenland, near Cape
390 DENUDATION—FROST-MAEKS—LAND-ICE,
Farewell ; 200 died. The ship which lasted longest drifted
fi'oin lat. 78° or 80°, to 62° southwards ; westwards from 5° or
(3° E, to ahout 40° W. long. ; or about 1300 miles S., 43 W.,
in 103 days, at 12 miles a day.
The Arctic Cun-ent, with its floats, is an established fiict,
and its power at sea is formidaljle. As Scoresby says,
" A body of more than 10,000 millions of tons in weight
meeting with resistance when in motion, produces conse-
quences which it is scarcely possible to conceive." But what
is a single field to this stream of fields and bergs, in which
a fleet of nine ships and their hardy crews were helpless as a
swarm of ants adrift upon touchwood in frosty weather.
The thrust of ice upon ice, the tlumdering crash of icel)erg
against iceberg ; the power which crushes a ship like a hazle-
nut, with a substance which cuts like glass, mingled with
sand, earth, gravel, and stones, and is 1500 feet deep, is surely
an engine strong enough to work denudation on a large scale.
It everywhere appears incidentally that ice grounds on
reefs and shoals, and sometimes it hangs for years near one
place ; and the deepest ice carries cutting stone points, and
sand for i^olishing the work. For the best of the old voyagers
ice at sea was a terrible ship-destroying engine ; but so far
they do not seem to have thought much of the consecpiences
of the collision between hard water and hard stones on shore
or mider fluid water.
Ice-floats both on the eastern and western coasts of Green-
land, from the highest known latitudes down to the Arctic
Circle, appear to be of similar dimensions, and to have worked
for centuries.
The earliest voyagers Ibund ice-floats. About A.d. 980, a
certain Icelander, nanuul Thorgils, wt>nt to Greenland to join
Eirik the lied, the discoverer. An Icekuidic saga tells the story
ARCTIC CUERENT—FLOxVTS—GREENLAND, ETC. 391
of his voyage ; and lie foimd a land teeming with snoM^' Jolden,
and a bay surrounded by ice-mountains in which the ship was
wrecked. Then comes a long tale of suffering and disaster,
with portents and marvels ; and through this strange old saga
there looms a cold picture of savage, desolation—a glacier on
land, frozen seas near the shore, floatmg ice on the sea
horizon. Wlien they sailed south in a new-built ship, at
last they sailed between Jokulls on land and ice-floats at sea.
They had to lift their boat over ice ; they found a broken-
legged bear struggling in ice. In short, they foimd Greenland
a thousand years ago like Greenland now. There is, however,
some evidence of a sudden change m the climate of these
regions within liistoric times. From the end of the tenth
centur}^ the Scandinavian colony fomided by Eirik the Eed
gi-ew and flourished, in spite of ice, till the end of the
thirteenth. Then came a change for the worse. The last
bishop was imable to reach the land for ice ; and Eirik the
Eed found what he called a green land. Wliat became of the
colony is imknown ; what the interior of Greenland may now
be like is infen-ed. It seems to be a snow-heap, with green
spots roimd the edge—a land upon which the banished
Scandinavian glacial period has made a settlement by the
help of the ice-fleet.
From Spitzbergen to Jan Mayen the current, laden wath
ice-floats, curves south-westward ; it is from 100 to 150
miles wide. Near the shore are "msets" and "offsets" and
local tides, which vary the direction ; but along the coast
of Greenland, from Spitzbergen to Iceland, the current moves
like a stiU river-pool, with Hnes of froth curving and whirling
as they float. It moves south-west.
In 1784 ships in lat. 63° opposite to Iceland were beaten
back by ice fifty miles from the coast. It is still (18G-4) a
392 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
problem whether the colony died of the black death or stai-va-
tiou ; were slain by savages or survived to found a race of
savage Scandinavians, who still people the unknown coast of
Eastern Greenland ; but ruins about Cape Farewell seem to
prove that the old colonists perished.
In 1822 Scoresby sailed from Liverpool in search of
whales and the colony ; and a very interesting accoimt of his
voyage was published.* It was an adventurous voyage of dis-
covery made by a keen observer well used to ice. He sailed
north to 80°, and worked down the coast from Gale Hankes-
land 75° nearly to 69°—the latitudes of Hannnerfest, Alten,
the Lofodens, etc., in Norway. About 80° the ice-floes were
twenty to fifty feet thick in the open sea, and to the north
was a floating continent. In lat. 74° Scoresby drove his good
ship westward for a hundred miles through heavy ice to
the coast. Along the eastern bounds of the stream was
open water. In the stream, where ice had crushed ice, great
broken plates were piled one above the other, till packs and
Inmimocks rose thirty or forty feet. At the rate of -|-, this
ice was about 270 or 360 feet thick, like bits of the chalk-
cliffs of England adrift in the North Sea. Floes eight, ten,
twenty, and thirty miles in diameter, moving S. W. at the rate
of a mile an hour, or seven or eight miles in a day, were
common about 70°, but near the land these masses stop and
stick fast on the ground.
The coasts sketched by Scoresby show steep cliffs ; some-
thing very like a volcanic cone, and glaciers in every hollow.
The hills vary from 6000 feet to low lands, and their general
height is about 3000 feet. The sea near the coast was open,
but near the land great icebergs were set in ice-floats, like
* Journal of Voycifjc to the Northern JVhale Fishery, William Scoreshy.
Edinburgh, 1822.
ARCTIC CUERENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 393
stakes in a raft or irons in a plane. Those described were 100
and 150 feet high, so they were about 800 or 900, and 1200
or 1350 feet thick, according to their flotation, and many were
aground.
If hard heavy solids, whose area is about 900 square
miles, move a mile an hovir, with rough points scraping the
sea-bottom 1000 feet or 1500 feet down ; the graving-tools
which the Arctic Current moves south-west must leave deep
tracks about lat. 71°, which corresponds to the North Cape of
Norway, and the fjeld about Alton and Tana, above described
(chaps, xix. xx. xxi.)
The land which Scoresby describes consists of strange
weathered peaks, cones, and pyramids, and of low, rounded,
"uninteresting" islands. They were uninteresting then,
because the effect of glacier-work had not been recognised in
1822. The low lands seem to be "ice-tors" with "perched
blocks." " Eathbone Island," in 70° 40', had an insulated peak
jutting into the sea, with a rock on the summit resembling
the ruins of an old castle (p. 179). There was little snow on
the steep hills, large tracts of rounded hills were bare ; but
there were very large glaciers in the glens and lochs. The
heat on a sunny day was oppressive;
plants and insects
abounded ; there were the bones of reindeer and other large
creatures ; hares and birds were shot ; and there were many
traces of men ; huts, ashes, implements, and graves. Amongst
rocks of the coal formation and beds of coal were boulders of
granite and gneiss, and these were seen on floating ice.
In lat, 69° was a chain of large floating icebergs thirty
miles long. There were about 500 adrift. Some were loaded
with stones, and contained strata of earth and stones. One
was covered as high as a ship's mast by the freight of glacial
debris, so as almost to hide the ice. Another was calculated
394 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
to weigh forty-fivo luillioiis of tons. At iifty miles from the
shore soundings were got in 1142 feet ; so for fifty miles
every projecting rock under water is liable to be grooved by
the passage of floating islands of ice conglomerate as large as
Arthur's Seat frozen into Mid-Lothian, and sailing south-west
;
except where local tides and cross straits vary the course.
For Scoresby's vivid description of the perils braved in
this voyage, his book must be read.
On the 23d of August the " Baffin " off Greenland was
between two great floes, which were rolling their edges against
each other like a pair of crushing rollers, and they threatened
to crack the good ship like a nut. About the same season,
and in the same latitude, the writer sailed round the North
Cape of Norway in a fishing-boat, without suffering danger,
discomfort, or cold ; he was out for two nights, and, except a
few patches of snow on the hills, tliere was no sign of frost.
The coast which Scoresby left unexplored is still a blank
on the last Admiralty chart.
Eastern Greenland then is as habitable as Sweden, so far
as the smi's heat is concerned; but the climate is spoiled
l)y a current of cold water. Ice excepted, the eastern coast
described is like that of Scandinavia and Western Iceland.
Is this Greenland " ice-period" to be attributed to a general
cooling of the earth ; to some great astronomical change ; or
simj)ly to ocean-cuiTents ?
In these latitudes, horizontal ice-grooves are made on the
sides of fjords, at the sea-level on both sides ; and in all depths
to 1500 feet at least. At greater depths, the bottom may be
covered with undisturbed loose drift, while the sides are bare
stone scraped and polished. If Greenland were to rise 2000
feet, and banisli its climate, it is easy to comprehend tliat two
sorts of marks would remain. Horizontal marks for a height
ARCTIC CURUENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 395
of 1500 feet ; made by sea-ice, and having reference to the
old coast-line ; to tides and currents :—sloping marks made
by land-glaciers sliding down the glens. One set would be
conspicuous on hill-tops which had risen and on promontories
which had become hill-shoulders ; the other in glens which
had held glaciers ending in fjords.
According to Scoresby's theory, the northern part of
Greenland is a cluster of islands ; if so they must be marked
on the same j^rinciple.
A sound is supposed to communicate with Baffin's Bay,
about lat. 70°, because an inset was there detected on the
east coast, and because an outset exists about Jacob's Bight
on the western coast. According to natives, whales killed
on the east have drifted through to the west. This channel,
if it exists now, is blocked by ice. The Esquimeaux have
a tradition that the channel was open, and fear that it will
open again, so as to let the east coast natives, whom they call
savages, pass to their side. In any case, the land about tlie
latitude of Hammerfest is closed, so that the questions of
land or sea, strait or glen, remain open ; but the whole coast
must be ice-ground.
Of the interior of the country, nothing is certamly known
down to lat. 60.° From specimens of rock taken from the
east coast, and from icebergs near it, the country above 70°
includes gTanites, gneiss, clay-slates, "primitive, transition, and
secondary rocks," greenstones, syenites, and rocks of the coal
formation ; bituminous shale, slate coal, trap, porphyry, brown
coal, etc.
In the geological notice of 1822, there is no mention of
denudation by ice. Though many old geologists had then
noticed ice-marks in the British Isles, the bearing of arctic
phenomena upon these marks appears to have been overlooked.
396 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
At the end of Parry's Voyages, 1821-22-23-24-25, is a
geological summary by Jameson.
Under the head of alluvial rocks he says
—
" No extensive deposits of allu-vial rocks were met with. The
most striking objects under this head are outliers or bouklers, or frag-
ments of rocks spread over the surface of some of the islands. The
surface of Igloolik, a limestone island, is strewed with blocks of primi-
tive rocks ; the island of Neerlo Nakto, which is principally composed
of limestone, is also strewed over with primitive blocks or boulders;
and in Amherst Island, in which greywacke and greywacke slate are
almost the only rocks, rolled masses or boulders of granite, gneiss,
and quartz rock are not uncommon."
This geologist mentions that water in the form of snow
and ice abounds, and asserts that the boulders prove the
passage of water over the land ; but he docs not mention
glaciers and icebergs as transporting and denuding agents. It
apj)ears, however, that large perched blocks abound about
Port Bowen and Cape York near the coast, and up to a
height of 400 feet. They are numerous on hill-sides near
Prince Eegent's Inlet, but from fourteen to sixteen miles
inland they are snuiller and rare. The nearest known fixed
rocks of the same kind were 100 miles away in many cases.
It further appears that coal-beds prove the former exist-
ence of a climate fit for trees, which cannot grow anywhere
near the same latitudes now.
In Franklin's Travels to the Shores of the Polar Sea, 1819-
20-21-22-25-26-27, are numerous passages which forcibly
describe the appearance and work of heavy ice.
At page 143, vol. ii., is a drawing, by Back, of a stranded
berg : on it they remarked large heaps of gravel fifteen feet
above the surface of the reef, " which must have been caused
l)y the pressure of the ice."
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 397
At page 256, vol. ii., ice-floats in latitude 68° 32' K are
described. They grounded in fifty-four feet of water, and
rose five or six feet above the surface. They were drifting in
a tide which ran three or four miles an hour, and they rolled
horizontally along the coast, as a wheel rolls vertically along
a road. Their sudden collision reminded the party of the
poet's description of Scylla and Carybdis. A boat was caught
between a floe and a piece that lay aground ; it was lifted out
of the water, and seriously damaged.
It is evident that a mechanical force sufficient to lift and
crush a boat and a fleet of ships, might also lift and crush
equal weights of any material of equal strength. As a wheel
crushes small stones, and makes a rut, so an ice-raft rolling
on a coast must also crush stones and make ruts horizontally,
for all rollers work on one plan.
These volumes contain a simple narrative of gallant
exploits performed during years of hardship, endurance, and
steady toil ; they are very interesting, and very instructive.
In the geological notice at the end all the usual marks of
glacial action—rounded rocks, boulders, etc.—are well de-
scribed ; but no mention is made of ice as a geological engine.
In the geognostical observations these passages occur :
—
"AVith regard to the large rolled blocks which are so
plentifully scattered over the surface of some countries, and
which have been considered to have been deposited by the
waters of the flood, we have no remarks of moment to make."
* * * *
With regard to the large blocks which are strewed over
" barren ground," it is said—" Their angTdar forms, and their
resting-places, often on the very summit of hiUs, militate
against their having travelled from a great distance."
The eminent discoverers whose names are familiar to
398 DENUDATION—FltOST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
all wlio admire daring and endurance, travelled before
geology had taken the shape which it now wears ; hut their
accounts of North America show a country " like Sweden,"
with all the usual marks of ice and ice-floats.
In the geological notes attached to Banks's Journey to the
Memth of the Great Fish River, 1833-34-35, there is no mention
of ice as a geological agent, though drawmgs and descriptions
in the narrative show a country strewed with granite,
houlders, and beds of sand ; salt plains, and other marks,
which suggested an old sea flowing over these northern regions
of North America.
Every book about arctic travel describes an engine of
enormous joower busily working upon the coast.
The western coast of Greenland is like the eastern.
In Eoss's Voyage to Bajjin^s Bay, a coast is described in
latitudes which correspond to those of the open sea between
Spitzbergen and the North Cape. August Vlth, 1819.—The
ship was amongst bergs, which were aground in 300 feet, in
a current moving a knot an hour. The sea-bottom was there
exposed to the force of a graving-tool as high as Shake-
speare's Cliff at Dover, driven by a stream as strong as the
tide in the English Strait. Lat. 7G° 121', long. 69° 54' W.
The coast was a succession of high cliffs, beyond which snowy
mountains appeared ; and every inlet was filled with glaciers,
some extending far out to sea.
Here is an August Greenland landscape, to compare with
one in Spitzbergen or Norway :
—
" While the moon was in sight, she had the appearance of follow-
ing the sun round the horizon ; and while thesi' bodies were passing in
azimuth along the to]>s of the mountains, the snow which covered them,
and which naturally had a yellow tinge, had the lustre of gold ; and
the reflection of these upon the sky introduced a rich green tint, so
ARCTIC CURKENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 399
delicately beautiful as to surpass description. On the otlur hand, the
rays of the sun, darting over the tops of the mountains, came in contact
with the icebergs, which appeared like as many edifices of silver,
adorned with precious stones of every variety."
Lat. 75° 25' K At the head of Baffin's Bay, now pro-
moted to be a sea, were vast numbers of very large icebergs,
most of which were aground in 250 fathoms (1500 feet). Tlie
velocity of the tide was half a mile an hour. Each valley
held its glacier ; each fjord was a great rock-slip, with
icebergs ready to be sent adrift, slidmg seawards to join the
floats. The sea is like one great glacier, whose crevasses
are lanes of clear water, which open and close,mend and break
;
Wilde the mass drifts continually on its way to the region where
ice melts in sunlight.
Of the coast of Greenland—m lat. 75° 25' K, long. 60° 36'
W., Eoss says, July 24:ih—" We were now twelve miles from
the land, which was everywhere covered with ice, except a
few places near tlie shore, where the sharp top of a rock
appeared occasionally piercing tlu-ough it ; the interior being
an entire smooth but high mass of ice."
Tlie ships were beset in floating ice ; but here was the
neve from which the bergs came. SouncUngs were got
in 1884 feet ; bottom, mud and stones ; temperature of mud,
32° ; and of water at the surface, 34° ; air, 55° ; sun obscured.
The inhabitants of this region, according to Eoss, supposed
their own people to be the only inhabitants of the universe,
and the rest of the world to be ice. They inquired whether
the Englishmen and their ships came from the sim or moon,
andgenerallytheywere amphibious, copper-coloured, coq:)ulent,
ignorant mortals, dressed in skins, who walked chiefly on
frozen water, and only trod upon bare groimd occasionally in
summer.
400 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
In latitude 72° 30', the eorresponding sea to that which
washes the Norwegian coast about the North Cape, they
passed through a tliird barrier of large icebergs, which were
aground, in vast numbers, in 63 and 100 fathoms (378 and
600 feet). In lat. 70° 54', on the coast which corresponds to
Alten in Norway (m June 29th), the whole sea was cumbered
with ice drifting fast in a calm—the large bits groundmg, the
small bits helping to drive them on.
The prospect from the masthead was interminable ice,
melting and breaking up.
In lat. 68° 10', which corresponds to West Fjord, in Norway,
on the 9th of June, Eoss landed on an iceberg which was
aground near two small islands. The natives said that it had
been there since last year. Various stones, and a stratum of
gravel, were found in it, and several rare birds were shot. The
tide ran about half a mile an hour, tlie ebb southwards. From
marks on this grounded float it appeared that the water had
been higher, so it had run aground. Here was sea-ice doing
glacier-work, for a year at least, grinding slowly north or
south, if it moved with the tide, and dropping its cargo where
it lay.
The whole coast about Disko, near the latitude of Tromso,
was frozen in, and the sea was thick with heavy ice, swing-
ing up and down, north and south, with the tide, and moving
with the ocean-current. There were flat pieces of pack-ice,
" full as large as half an acre, drawing from five to ten
fathoms ;" ice-planes, fifty to sixty feet deep, smoothing
smiken rocks so far under water. There were icebergs afloat
and aground in a tide running a knot and a half an hour
;
hard points working at all depths, from 1500 to the surface,
according to their several dimensions ; and they all worked up
and down tlic cliannel in wliich like engines have floated
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 401
Avith the tide and current ever since the days of Eirik the
Eed and Thorgill. The lithograjDlis of remarkal)le icebergs in
70" 45' N. make the ice-cliffs seven times the height of the
ship's masts ; but lithograj^hers were, and still are, apt to im-
prove original sketches, and to put life into dull landscapes.
One of these ice-mountains to which the ship was moored
suddenly got afloat, and was carried with great rapidity to the
west ; it soon grounded again. By taking a mental dive, it is
easy to see the result of the bump and scrape which must
have resulted from this movement, though it was but a step in
this endless dance of ice-islands. On this voyage Eoss saw
his first iceberg on the 26th of May, in lat. 58° 34' K, long.
51° W. It was off Cape Farewell, in the latitude of Gotheborg,
Christiansand, and Inverness, Skye and North Uist. It
appeared to be 40 feet high and 1000 long, 360 feet thick;
or about as big as a slice of the cliffs above Portrigh in Skye.
About the Arctic Circle 66° 22', on the 7th of June, icebergs
were seen which may have been somewhere about 2275, or
even 2925 feet thick. They were 1200 long, 325 feet high.
At one-ninth this berg would touch at 2600 feet : at one-
seventh in 1850.
There are many islands on the corresponding Norwegian
coast which are about these dmiensions above water. If the
Norwegian islands were gTinding the Norwegian coast, they
would do notable work in a thousand years. " At 9, seemg
fixed ice from the masthead extending from the land, we
hauled to the northward by compass—that is, inaking a west
course—and steered between the grounded icebergs among
packs and streams of ice. One of the icebergs was 300 feet
high, and 1200 feet in length : a torrent of water was running
down its side."
So the western coast of Greenland, which correspond?! to
402 DENUDATION—FKOST-MAr.KS—LAND-ICE.
the western coast of Norway, is contiinially worn Ly iloats
which work at all depths between 2000 feet and the surface.
They are grinding in shallo^^'S, and filling np deep hollows
with drift sorted in water. The eastern and western coasts,
according to Scoresby and Ross, are alike so far.
ISIodern arctic explorers had the works of the exponents
of glacial action to refer to, and their works give direct infor-
mation as to ice-work.
Kane, in his account of his arctic explorations in 1853-
54-55, gives picturesque descriptions and good engi'avings of
ice and ice-work. He compares Greenland glaciers, in tbe
latitudes of Spitzbergen, with Swiss glaciers ; and refers to
well-known works published between 1840 and 1850. For a
striking picture of land-ice of enormous dimensions, Kane's
descriptions of the great Humboldt glacier should be read.
The sea-face is an ice-cliff 300 feet high, and it joins
Greenland to America. It is a great table-land of ice sliding
into the sea and over islands, and there breaking into icebergs,
which nuist touch in 2000 feet. Amongst these the wild
Esquimeaux and their dogs hunt bears upon the ice-crust.
The carrying power of bergs, and their birthplaces, are
equally well described ; and to these another tool is added by
Kane.
The sea-ice which forms about Lat. 79° is of tlic pattern
described by Martens, Scoresby, and others, l)ut (»f still larger
dimensions. Ice-floes are forty feet thick;pack-ice sixty feet
high. Bay-ice is so hard and sharp that it cuts through boats
like a saw ; all ice is so hard that it is aptly compared to
granite. For protection the; boats were covered with tin. In
the Clyde, near Glasgow, young ice so wears iron steamers
that they arc forced to stop when the river freezes. The
strange ringing, tinkling, crunching, clattering sound of small
ARCTIC CURRENT— FLOATS—GREENLANH, ETC. 403
plates of broken ice adrift in a stream, may be heard even in
Scotland occasionally. From this miniature "pack," it is easy
to rise to the larger drift which Kane so well describes. Here
is the same rolling engine which Scoresby and Franklin also
descrilie :
—
" I had hardly got 1)ack tii my boat before a gale struck us from
the north-west, and a floe, taking upon a tongue of ice about a mile to
the north of us, began to swing upon it like a ]3ivot, and close slowly
in ujion our narrow resting-place. At first our own floe also was driven
before the wind ; but in a little while it encountered the stationary ice
at the foot of the very rock itself On the instant, the wildest iniagin-
aT)le ruin rose around us. The men sprang mechanically each one to
his station, bearing back the boats and stores ; but I gave up for the
moment all hope of our escape. It was not a nip such as is fannliar
to arctic navigators ; \mt the whole platform where we stood, and fur
hundreds of yards on every side of us, crumbled and crushed and piI(Ml
and tossed itself madly under the pressure." All this " in tlui midst
of a clamour utterly indescribable, tluuugh which the liraying of u
thousand trumpets could no more have been heard than the voice of a
That was the big engine ; l)ut the very same scene was
enacted upon the Serpentine, when a thaw in 18G4 set mini-
ature floes adrift : they rolled, and crushed, and made marks
in the gravel along the shore.
The geological engine, to which Kane calls special atten-
tion, is one which may also be seen at home. The ice-foot of
the far north is but a folio copy of stranded ice frozen on the
shore of every tidal stream during every English frost ; Ijut a
winter temperature of 70" below zero writes ice-records on
thick slaljs. Bergs 300 feet high, and probably more than
2000 thick ; fields, floes, and pack forty and sixty feet thick,
frozen into one raft, hard as granite, and reaching from
shore to shore, is an engine of vast weight ; and it is moved
404 DENUDATION—FROST-MAltKS— LAND-ICE.
l->y tides which have the whoh' power of the ocean hehiml
tilcm.
The saw, which is hard enough to cut iron in motion, is
hard enough to cut stone wlien it moves ; and this saw is of
large dimensions. It is saw, crushing-roller, lever, and shears
combmed.
Falling with every ebb, the raft, which covers a strait
about the size of the Irish Channel, grounds, and the edge
breaks. The flood lifts it, the frost mends it, and water
cements the beach into one solid mass. Ice-wedges shower
down new stones from cliffs overhead ; small glaciers hurl
down morames ; Jack Frost shakes his bag of snow-feathers,
and they gather and slide and fall upon the shelf. The ice-
piers gTow from beneath, and the raft tends to prize up the
w\all ; and so at last the winter's cold and the force of the
tide l)uild a terrace—a broad flat road, somewhat higher than
high-water mark, and with a steep broken face towards the
sea. The dimensions described by Kane are about equal to
the Liverpool quays and landing-stages ; and a like wall is
built round the coast of Greenland, round Spitzbergen, round
great part of the polar basin, and wherever there is ice in a
tideway, and cold enough to make water-cement.
This ice-foot is described as a geological enghie, almost
equal to a glacier in power. Where built by a tidal wave of
thirteen feet, it is twenty feet high. It grows in winter ; en-
croaches on the floes ; drives a ship and her i(;e-dock gradually
away from the land. It is a machine able to move stones sea-
wards at a slow rate. The wootlcuts show a white wall,
studded with large stones. It is an ordinary beach and talus-
heap, packed and moved Ijy the cold end of the caloric and
gravitation engine of the world.
In spring, great slices of this icc-ANall break olf and move
ARCTIC CUEEENT—FLOATS—(GREENLAND, ETC. -405
seawards, where the beach may be seen in the ice-raft, AMien
the rafts Ijreak up, they sail soiith with tlie current, and the
wandering beaches depart with them, and sail till they sink.
If a slice of sea-beach breaks adrift from the floe whicli
helps to float it, and sinks where water is warmer than the
freezing-poiiit—for instance in the mud above mentioned
—
the wandering beach, freed from its ice-bonds, would become
a ridge of stones, sand, clay, and other ice-chips, like "osar"
and "kames," which are found in Scandinavia.
If the ice-foot melts on the ice-rubbed slope, at the sea-
level, where it is built, it will become a drift-terrace, of the
pattern which is so common on the shores of Greenland at
higher levels.
Kane's drawings, and the cuts (p. 356), seem to represent
the engine at work in Greenland, and tool-marks and cliips in
Xorthem Scandinavia.
At page 81, vol. ii., Kane uses these same marks to fix an
old sea-level. He counted forty-one distinct ledges, or shelves
of terrace, rising 480 feet above the present sea in Northern
Greenland ; and at 1100 feet was a syenite boulder, perched
on coarse sandstone. By these, and other marks, a rise in the
north is fixed—in Xorway, Spitzbergen, Greenland, and the
Wellington Channel ; and apparently the same marks are
found throughout North America. In Southern Greenland,
according to the best authorities, land is sinking.
Eising and sinking of land, on a vast scale, goes on at the
source of the arctic currents, which so chill the climates of
other lands ; so dams and weirs do change place.
Tlie temperature of the ice-crust is arranged in layers, like
the temperature of the rest of the upper crusts which make up
the surface of the globe.
In the air the warmest layer is below. In mid-winter, in
406 DENUDATION—FKOST-MAIJKS— LAND-ICE.
lat. 78° 50', Kane found minus 30° at the surface of ice, minus
8° at two feet, plus 2° at four feet, plus 26° at eight feet, and
fluid water below. The warmest layer of water is below when
the whole column is near the freezing-point ; the mud was 32°.
The glaciers yielded an uninterrupted How of fresh water
throughout the year ; so a temperature of 32° is buried in ice,
where air was as cold as minus 70°, and the mean of the year
minus 5°.
Still lower, under sedimentary beds of limestone and sand-
stone, is a temperature which boils water ; for there are hot
springs in Greenland : and lower still, there has been a heat
sufficient to melt greenstone, lava, and basalt.
Under all the snow and ice, and all the crusts of sedi-
mentary and igneous rocks, some power is raising one end of
this island, and lowering the other, as the tide lifts and lowers
the ice-crust in the sea.
These are some of the facts which have been gleaned from
the works of men who were travellers indeed ; the merit of
collecting them is theirs.
The object here aimed at, is to show that these facts hang
together ; that all the mechanics of geology belong to one
engine ; and that the Arctic Current is but a small part of it.
Following the curve of the stream from the point M'here
Scoresby left it, take Lord Duft'erin's vivid description of it
about a hundred miles from the Greenland coast—p. 202, Letters
from H'ujh Latitudes.
" It was shortly after this that, as I was standing in the main rigging
peering out over the smooth blue surface of the sea, a white twinkling
point of light caught my eye about a couple of miles off the port bow,
which the telescope soon resolved into a solitary isle of ice, dancing and
dijiping in the sunlight. As you may suppose, the news brought
everybody upmi deck, and when, almost immediately afterwards, a
ARCTIC CUltRENT—FLOATS—GHEENLAND, ETC. 407
string of other pieces, glittL-riug like a diaiuoud necklace, hove in -sight,
the excitement was extreme."
And tlieu follows a picturesque description of a fresh,
vivid, first impression, expressed in simple language by a
well-educated gentleman, who appreciates beauty and fun,
can face danger, and write English.
The island of Jan Mayen is about the latitude of the North
Cape of Norway, where there are old ice-marks in plenty, but
Jan Mayen often has " ice all round." *
" Behind that veil of mist," writes Lord Dnfferin, " I know must lie
Jan Mayen."
"A few minutes more, and slowly, silently, in a manner ynu could
rake no count of, its dusky hem first deepened to a violet tinge, then,
gradually lifting, displayed a long line of coast, in reality but the roots
of Beerenberg, dyed of the darkest purple ; while, obedient to a common
impulse, the clouds that wrapt its summit gently disengaged themselves,
and left the mountain standing in all the magnificence of his 6870
feet, girdled by a single zone of pearly vapour, from underneath whose
floating folds seven enoiinous glaciers rolled dowai into the sea ! Nature
seemed to have turned scene-shifter, so artfully were the phases of this
glorious spectacle successively developed.
" Although, by reason of our having hit upon its side, instead of its
narrow end, the outline of Mount Beerenberg appeared to us more like
a sugar-loaf than a spire—broader at the base and rounder at the top
than I had imagined—in size, coloiu-, and effect, it far surpassed any-
thing I had anticipated. The glaciers were (piite an unexpected element
of beauty.
" Lnaguie a mighty river, of as great a volume as the Thames, started
down the side of a mountain, bursting over every impediment, whirled
into a thousand eddies, tumbling and raging on from ledge to ledge, in
(quivering cataracts of foam ; then suddenly struck rigid by a power so
instantaneous in its action that even the froth and fleeting wreaths of
spray have stiS"ened to the immutability of sculpture. Unless you had
seen it, it woidd be almost impossible to conceive the strangeness of the
* r. 213, Letters ivum High Latitudes.
408 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
coiitmst Ix'tween tlie actual traiKjuillity of these siltnt crystal rivers,
and tlio violent descending energy impressed upon their exterior. Youmust remember, too, that all this is upon a scale of such prodigious
magnitude that when we succeeded subsequently in approaching the
s^jot, where, with a leap like that of Niagara, one of these glaciers
plunges down into the sea—the eye, no longer able to take in its fluvi-
atile character, was content to rest in simple astonishment at M'hat then
appeared a lucent precipice of gray green ice, rising to the lieight of
several hundred feet above the masts of the vessel."
TIlis masterly word-picture is taken from a distance at
Avliich tlie grandeur of the entire local system could be seen
and understood by one able to appreciate it ; but the island in
the Arctic Current is but a rubbish-heap in the stream.
It is a sluml)ering volcano, rising in the midst of a current
which is wearing it down. It is stopping floats and gather-
ing drift, like Bear Island. Every big stone does as nuich in
every freezing stream, but this island gathers floating ice in a
solid rampart which sometimes stretches northwards and
southwards for hundreds of miles. Floats gather up stream
on the weather side, strike, and stop ; and down stream in the
lee of the mountain, they whirl round in the eddy out of the
stream into the shelter, and freeze again. Sometimes the
whole fleet departs and the coast is clear.
The snow-clad ridge is a condenser thrust from below far
up into polar and equatorial currents of air, to catch acpieous
vapour on its way north, and so it distils glaciers and ice-
bergs of its own, from clouds and mists which cold icy seas
condense from chilled air. Jan INIayen has a local system of
glacial action, but it is in a general system of far greater size.
A stranded turf gathers a heap of snow while the stream
flows past it, and so do Jan IMayen and Greenland amongst
the arctic currents.
For all the cold Jan jNIayeii is a heap Avliich once burned
AKCTIC CUREENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 409
and glowed. " The base is a network of trap dykes, winch
shoot in every direction through the scorite and conglo-
merate of which the cliff seemed to be composed."*
Scoresby fonnd one crater smoking.
Probably there are floods of molten lava still seething
beneath the crust of hardened rock, on which stands the
mountain with its outer crust of hardened water, and the cold
fluid sea with its ice-crust sailing back to the place whence
icebergs flew as clouds.
If this mountain were freed from all its coverings of mist,
snow, ice, and water, and left bare like hills near the North
Cape of Norway, the marks left by moving ice upon solid
rock would register the direction of movements, and prove
the strength of forces which now cause them.
The Norwegian hills seem to record the passage of an
arctic current. If this island becomes a mountain in the
midst of a fjeld there will certainly remain a system of ice-
marks to record the facts.
One system of grooves radiating from the top, dug out of
the sides of the cone by local icebergs, will record the move-
ments of the local system whose centre of motion is the
watershed of this small district. Like evidence will record
the movements of the system whose centre of motion is the
North Pole. Horizontal grooves on the ends and sides of
the island will record the passage of floats which strike the
coast, and these may extend from forty or fifty feet above
high-water mark, to 360 or 450 below low-water mark—for
these are the dimensions of the floats described. Tliere may
be scratches, grooves, and glens at any depth, short of the
extreme limit at which Greenland icebergs gi'ound ; and that
has been stated at 2000 feet at least.
* Letters from High Latitudes.
4 1 1 )KNUDATIOX—Flii )ST-.MAH KS—LAND-ICE.
The direction of marks nuide by floats iin;st coincide with
that of the movement. The diagram (p. 127) will serve for
illustration, and any bridge will show the movements of floats
in a stream. In this case the floats move south-west, strike
the north-eastern end of a long ridge, and gather at the
south-western end in the eddy ; and they rise and fall with
the tide. The shape of the island is a long ridge, with the
longest axis pointing up stream N.E.
The greatest force is applied at the north-eastern end, and
most frequently and continuously within ten or twelve feet
of high and low water mark, and along the sides. So tlie
engine tends to saw off the ridge which in'ojects above the
sea. There must be a worn shelving bottom and a notch
worn in the hill, at the foot of a cliff which is constantly
undercut by ice-saws, and crushed by rollers.
Few stones can rest m sliallow water at this end, or at
the sides ; but if any stones are wrecked on the end of tlie
ice-pack, they may sink at the weather end where water is
too deep for ice to get at them. At the south-western end,
where the pack hangs iii the lee, the rock nnist be ground
;
but it cannot be shorn and ground and shaved off in the
same fashion at the sheltered end ; and loose stones may there
rest, unless winter ice picks them up and carries them off".
If this island rises, and the climate warms to the Norwe-
gian scale, it will be a fluted ridge, witli terraced sides, and
with piles of stones dropped in the lee. The sea-marks will
Ije as plain as the marks of seven great glaciers which Duflerin
and Scoresby describe and depict.
If the sea-bottom and the island ris(3 together, the shape
of the Norwegian fjeld will be copied.
At the top are Aveathered peaks of the A pattern, with
terraced sides and grooves and shelves of the L pattern to
AKCTIC CUKRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. -Ill
iii.iik the old sea-level. North-east and south-west will Lu
the stone cargoes of wrecked floes. Eouud the hill will he
moraines shed by the glaciers ; and stones may be scattered
in any direction, for light ice drifts with the wind.
The simken plain above which this cone now rises is at
the outer edge of the ice-stream, and is probably strewed with
light drift ; sand, clay, and occasional stones. If it rises above
the sea, and is washed and furrowed by new-born rivers, these
will start from the ridge A ; follow the course of the glaciers
in the grooves U ; fall over the steps L ; and then follow the
run of the ocean-current north-east or south-west ; for the
ocean-stream must furrow^ its bed like any other stream.
In the bed of the glacier U the water-stream will cut its
own mark V Y. In the edge of the old L shelf a fall will
work backwards. In the bed of the ice-slide ^ it will dig
a notch L. But when the rain-stream gets to the land, which
is now mider the sea. it may find hollows made by the ocean-
river ; and so the course of the new river and the form of lakes
and islands will mark out the course of the old ocean-current
which shaped the sea-bottom and marked the shores.
As air-streams bearuig clouds flow over mountains and
drop loads of snow and hail, so ocean-streams now flow over
these sunken lands, and drop their loads of stone and sand
from ice-floats. ^Vliere the air is chilled the water-load
falls ; where the water is warmed it drops the load which it
gathered on shore where it fell from the air.
There will be two separate sets of marks about Jan Mayen,
if the sea-bottom rises—marks of "weathering and land-ice ;"
and marks of " sea-ice" and waves ; tool-marks, chiselled,
scored, sawn, and hacked ; scratched, rubbed, and broken out
of the rock—marks of denudation. There wiU also be marks
of deposition, " perched blocks " dropped somewhere on hill or
41
2
DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
hollow; "glacial drift," "Ijoiilder clay" made of washings and
stray stones ;" osar " and " kames," long ridges and points
like those which are found in every dry river-bed, and wan-
dering beaches dropped by the ice-foot ;" trains " of stones
dropped from a moving iceberg, and marking its course from
N.E. to S.W. ;" motes," " duns," mounds of rubbish shot
bodily into the sea from a passing or stranded berg ;" mo-
raines" formed under water, as well as " moraines" formed at
the end of glaciers which do not reach the sea.
The bed of the sea at low tide will show the shape of the
land under the waves about Jan Mayen. Streams do similar
work on various scales. To learn the way in which denu-
dation and deposition go on near the Arctic Current, between
Spitzbergen and Iceland, it is but necessary to study nature
and books at home, travel with open eyes, and think.
CHAPTER XXV.
DENUDATION 17—FKOST-MARKS 15—LAND-ICE 14—ARCTIC
CURRENT 3—FLOATS 5—ICELAND.
Close to the stream which has been followed tlms far on its
south-west course, lies Iceland. It is about the latitudes of
Tornea, Quickjok, and Bodo ; Archangel, Wasa, Umea, Trond-
hjem, Tann Foss, and other places mentioned above. It is a
block of land as large as Ireland ; the Gulf Stream runs foid
of it, and the Arctic Current passes it on the west. It is a good
station for watching the effects of ocean-currents on climate.
Iceland is easily accessible ; steamers now run from the
Firth of Forth in a week, and in summer the voyage is easy
and pleasant. The first striking feature is the unusual outline
of the hill countiy.
The first land made is the Onefa. It is a mountain 6241
Danish feet high, and the highest land m the island. From
a distance of sixty miles, it is clearly seen on a fine day, and
the shape is that of a great white dome. It is the snowshed
of a local glacier system called the Vatna Jokull, whose base
is as large as Yorkshire. River-glaciers which flow from it
are seen to the right in crossing Sprengisandr northwards.
On that side they flow out of hollows between strange black
peaks and volcanic cones ; for the works of fire and frost, of
denudation, deposition, and upheaval, are mixed in this deso-
late tract.
The system rests upon active volcanoes, for smoke and fire
4U DRNUDATIOX—FKoST-MARKR—LAND-ICE.
l)roke out ainoiigst tlie ire in 18()2. The smoke was seen by
a party of Icelnnders, who tried to cross this great frozen sea
of hinil-iee ; Init they were forced to abandon their attempt, for
they found no grass for their liorses within many miles of tlie
snow-fiehl They described the place where they turned as a
desert of stones and black ashes, wet and frozen, with a great
rolling white sea of snow and neve, stretching to the horizon,
before them. It is said that this snow-tract has been crossed
and recrossed on horseback. In 18G1 an attempt to scale
Fio. 5(). Ok.efa. .Inly -25, 1S(3-J—llriniiiig.
the Orpefa was made by Mr. Holland, who published an
account of his trip through Iceland in the book of the Alpine
Club.* The eastern and the northern sid(>. of tlie mountains,
and the skirts of glaci(>rs which flow from it in that direction,
were seen by Mr. Holland from the eastern coast, and tliey are
s(;en from KrabLi in the nortli.
* ]'r((ks, rass,'s, (mil (Ihicin-fi. Loudon, 18G2.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 415
As the steamer nears the coast, the snow-dome is seen to
rest upon a foundation of dark rocks, which would seem to
be sharp peaks from the coast below them. Low volcanic
cones, and small hills, whose shape is characteristic of the
action of fire, fringe the Ortefa, and can be made out with a.
good telescope. The woodcut is from a sketch made imder
favourable circumstances ; and the form was carefully copied
more than once, as the steamer approached and passed to the
west. This system is a great snow-dome, like that on Mont
Blanc, but planted on a lower base, in a higher latitude. It
is far larger than anything of the kind in Europe.
It was seen at 4 a.m. on the 25th of July, at a distance
which the sailors estimated at more than sixty miles ; and in
passing to the westward, it kept the same general form for an
angular distance of al)out 45^ The snow-dome shone in
the warm yellow light of the newly-risen sun, and seemed
to sparkle on the dark blue sea horizon. Above it hvmg a
cloud-map of the cold country ; the tent of vapour which the
glacial period in this tract was weaving in the damp air of the
warm Gulf Stream. Other clouds hmig in tlie clear, calm,
hard, bright morning sky, to show where other snow-systems
were still hidden under the rolling swell of the " Spanisii
waves ;" and soft-looking, downy, long-winged sea-birds, swung
through the air, almost toucliing the spray of the steamer's
bows, as she plunged on her way to Iceland.
The pattern is the same as that of the snowshed on
Bodals Kaabe (Fig. 39, p. 204).
As the steamer works on to the northwards, more hills oi"
the same pattern rise. Fig. 57, p. 416, w^as sketched from a
distance estimated at about forty miles. The cluster of snowy
domes which thus rise to the west of the Vatna Jokull, and
to the east of Hekla, cover a district of hidden fire. Small
41G DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
black specks on the snow are seen to be the edges of
smothered craters -svlien a powerful glass is Ijrought to 1)ear
upon them ; the coast-line is a succession of small cones and
craters. Skaptafells Sysla, the district thus covered with snow-
domes, was the scene of one of the most famous of modern
volcanic eruptions. A mass of matter, calculated to l)e ecpial
in dimensions to Mont Blanc, was ejected from the mountain
;
great glens were filled to the brim with lava, tlie sea was cum-
bered with rubbish, the air was thick with volcanic dust, and
the face of the country was changed. But for all that, Eyaf-
jalla, ]\[yrdals Jokull, and the rest of the cluster of domes now
VLLA AND MyRDaLS Jc IKULL.—VesTKK Sk AITAKKLLS Sv.'
July 23, ISOl ; July ib, 1S02.
send down tlieir river-glaciers, which are grinding igneous
rocks as steadily as if no such thing as subterranean heat
existed.
As the sun rose and the steamer advanced, Ihe air seemed
to thicken and the hills to recede ; the clear sky was left
l)eliind, and the gray sky rose. The tent of cloud seemed
lower, and its rugged edges hung fluttering about the high
tops, drifting slowly along, and casting blue shadows on the
white world bencatli. liight ahead, to the west, was the
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 417
clear hard sea-liorizou, with a line of bright sky, against
which rock and cloud, hill and island, rose as the vessel went
panting on in the bright warm sim of noon.
At sunset the strange volcanic shapes of the Westmanna
Islands glowed astern, as if they were still red-hot, and the
western sky and the calm sea and the hills ahead were one
blaze of orange and purple, and gold and fire. j\I}Tiads of
birds screamed in the warm summer air of the northern niglit,
and Britons and Danes and Icelanders sat round a bowl of
punch, and sang till their throats were sore.
As the steamer thus coasts along on a fine clear calm day,
the mountains pass in review. The great snow-domes of the
Orsefa, Eyafjalla, and ]\I}Tdals JokuU are seen to be stratified
snow-heaps which have broken away in places round the edge,
leaving tall cliffs of bedded snow. The glass shows the sec-
tion, and it consists of a white snow formation resting on
a dark brown igneous formation of a similar shape. It is like
the Irish coast, near the Giant's Causeway, where beds of
chalk and beds of trap are in contact. But the snow is
pushing on over the edge of the rock, and it breaks and
pushes the broken edge down hill. Beneath these compound
cliffs are talus-heaps of snow and stone.
From the lower edge of this upper region stream long
slender spurs of blue ice, discoloured with dirt, moraines, and
volcanic dust. Tliese are about ten miles long and one wide,
or in that apparent proportion. They are true glaciers broken
and fissured and laid in hollows, and some of them nearly
reach the sea. Without a good glass they might pass for
dirty snow-wreaths, but tliey are as big as many Swiss glaciers,
and have a larger neve.
The coast-line is a plain of mud and .sand at the foot of an
old cliff, an L shelf dug in the hills of l)edded igneous rock by
2 E
418 DENUDATION—FUOST-MAltKS—LAND-ICE.
sea-wavos. On the low plain arc farms and cattle, above the
cliffs there is little grass to be seen. Between the cliff and
the snow-line is a wide desolate belt of stone and sand, lava
and ashes, over which three or four ice-rivers stream. At
Solheimer one of these, after a straight course of some ten or
twelve miles, tumljles through a gap in the cliff, and becomes
a conical glacier like that of Fj airland, resting on a broad sea-
l)each. There it changes into a muddy river, which spreads
till it is nearly as broad as it is long. The terminal moraine
of this glacier is the delta of the river ; the glacier itself is
a cover for running water ; so the work done partakes of the
nature of JMoraine, Paver Delta, and Sea-beach.
In passing thus along the coast on a bright clear day,
with an excellent map and a good telescope, these great local
ice-systems are as plainly seen as models ; their shapes can
1)e copied and their movements understood. Their M'ork;
the marks which they are engraving and the chips which they
are making, carrying, and packing, arc as easy to understand
as their forms.
After passing the Westmanna Eyjar these ice-domes are
left behind. They give place to a wide open strath, in the
laidst of which rises the cone of Hekla.
There are no glaciers upon it, Init tlie crater was full of
hard snow on the 10th of Atigust 18G1. Late in the summer
there is no snow, for the ground is hot at the top. The neve
liad formed ice-bridges by melting below, and the smi was
melting it above. The snow was sinking rapidly into the
cone of hot ashes, and it was hard to find enough of water to
drink. A certain subterranean temperature coincides with a
glacial period, and with glaciers reaching to the shore on the
south and south-eastern coasts ; but a higher STd)terranean
temperature melts tlu; ice on Ilekla.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 419
Tlie scene of tlie Njiil Saga is one vast plain of sand and
mud, waslied down l)y streams of water, and packed in the
sea. It is Sea-Leach, Delta, Moraine, and Cinder-heap in on(\
By following rivers which enter the sea near Ilekla, a way
leads north-east over the island, and that watershed is clear
of snow in summer. It seems to be a pile of drift.
The next and last glacier-system on the south coast is at
Snaefell. It is a cone of ice poured over a cone of lava and
ashes, and set upon the end of a long peninsula. Fig. 18,
p. 85, was sketched from Eeykjavik, and it shows the form.
These glaciers must date from the last eruption of the vol-
cano ; so their work would give a measure of time, if the date
of the eruption were known.
In the centre of the island arc several large local systems.
Hofs JokuU is to the west of the Orai'fa, and to the left in
passing north-east over Sprengisandr. It is a great cluster
of rounded snow-domes, from which broad ice-floods sweep
every way. There is nothing of the kind in the Alps. One
of these broad sheets, Arnarfells Jrikull faces the Sprengisandr
for thirty miles. A few dark rock-peaks stand up near the
edge, and the ice splits above, laps round the l)ase, and joins
below, like water flowing round a stone in a fall.
These rocks seem to be remnants of bedded trap strata, the
rest of which have been ground away by this white sea of ice.
They resemble hills in Sutherland, which arc quoted as
examples of extensive denudation ; and one black rock in
particular is exceedingly like Suilbheinn. According to the
Icelandic meaning, the name is descriptive, for Sul means
pillar. The marks which this kind of glacier makes must
radiate from the snowshed like the marks in the diagram,
p. 192. Lang Jokull, further west, is another system of this
kind—ice poured over a long ridge and hiding it completely;
420 DENUDATION—FROST-MAUKS—LAND-KK.
hut the siinw-surface is varied liy liill and dale, and tlic snow-
cover breaks here and there to show hlack l)roken elift's upon
which the white snow-beds rest.
Ok Jokull is a dome of snow on a base of bedded igneous
rock. Eyriks JiJkuU is of tlie same pattern, Init it is smaller
tlian the rest, easily seen and understood, and a good type of
i\ local ice-system at work.
It consists of snow, ndve, and ice ; dome and stream.
Here is a description of it copied from a clever pamphlet
called A Tour Tirenty Years Ago, by Umbra.'"'
The next day was tlie nin.'?t inomentous in all our journey. It was
pwt to long debate whether we should attempt the ascent of Eyriks
Jokul, a mountain which had never Ijeeu ascended hy foreignei' or Ice-
lander. The reasons assigned in favour of going up were various.
M'Diarmid, being by nature and constitution a sort of Spartan, was
in favour of anything that entailed fatigue or endurance. Another
said Eyriks Jiikul was the Key of Iceland, and it would redound to nui'
glory. A third remarked that it would be a jolly lark. Mr. Xwas decidedly adverse to going up. He observed that in case we met
glaciers, we had no ropes and no hatcliet, and lie made some incoherent
remarks about a mountain in Mexico. As Und>ra, I was readj"- to go
iir stay. At last it was resolved by a large majority to make the at-
tcm]it : but wliat with bathing and breakfasting and debating and ])re-
paring, lialf tlie day ^\as consumed, and it was eleven o'clock when we
started. We tlieu mde as ([uickly as we could up tlie valley, having
cDnstantly to fnrd tlic rivci-, and in Iwo hours we came in full sight ol'
tliat luiiiister Kyriks .bikul. His appearance and shape are peculiar : a
scarpeil ]M'rpcudiiular jet-lilack precipice, surmounted by a dume of
snow—tlie laltcr, seen from below, likt^ tlie back of a -reat lish, or the
ciinvex snrfai-c of a. dessert s] n. For aiiollicr limir we rode over the
rougli drliris ol' lava, enlivening the way by killing two uurorluiiate
wild swans wlios,^ wiii-s had n.it grown eiioui^h to ily,aiid who I'o.ilishly
dcscrlr.l Ihrir native waters to run up the rocks, where they fell an easy
prey. At one spot it seemed our jirogress must be stoppi'd, as we came
* boiidon, 1863.
ARCTIC CURliENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 42
1
to a tuiTeut that ran through steep rocky banks, and wt- in vain searched
for a place to cross. At last we all dismounted, and our hcirses one by
one were made to leap down a place which would shock the nerves of a
goat. To my surprise, they none of tliem broke their legs, and after
witnessing this feat I could believe anything of Iceland ponies. A^'e
left our ponies at the foot of the preci])ice. We had reconnoitred the
hill pretty well, and ascertained that this was the only spot where the
ascent of the precipice was practicaljle. At it we went—the heat was now
intense—the loose lava crumbled under our feet ; but after an hour the
cliff was scaled.
There was now before us a level plain—which of couise had been
invisible from below—of snow and lava mixed, a mile and a half in
extent ; and above rose the great snowy dome. The level plain we soon
walked across, and stopped ten minutes to lunch. And then com-
menced that dreadful climb, " il modo ancor m' otlende," the recollec-
tion of it is still grievous to me ; no glacier, no crevasses, no danger,
no excitement, but sheer hard fatigue. The snow, instead of being
frozen hard as we anticipated, so soft and crumbling that at every step
we were plunged into it up to our knees. On we went, still up, up, up,
occasionally changing the leader in front, in order that others might
follow in his footprints—still up, up, up ; and that horrid dome, the
top of which always seemed near, but which after long hours seemed
no whit nearer. Still up, up, up, till at last the lesolution of some
failed, and they annoimced their resolve to return.
And now it seemed that the ascent of the Key of Iceland was to
be abandoned ; for M'Diarmid alone, who though just then the most
tired of all, yet loving fatigue for fatigue's sake, was stiU indomitable
—
M'Diarmid alone seemed averse to giving it up, when Mr. X,
who was considered the most sluggish of the party, and was just then
lying exhausted on the snow, got on his legs and made us a speech !
First, he premised that he had been strongly against the attempt, but
having begun, it was our duty as citizens of the Great British Em2)ire
to go on with it. Secondly, he begged to observe that he had stood
two contested elections, which was much more trying than the ascent
of any mountain. Tliirdly, he made reference to a mountam in Mexico
^\ith an unpronounceable name ; and he concluded by saying that after
having been up the latter, before he would give in to this Iceland
excrescence (for so he contemptuously termed the magnificent Eyriks
422 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS^LAND-IOE.
Jiikul) he would rather, on an important division, go into the wroni,'
loLhy.
At the close of tliis unexpected oration oni' party divided;
M'Diarniid, Mr. X , and the poetic Digwell, pursued their
upward way, and in the course of another hour succeeded in reaching
the top of the dome, which they described as being a large plateau
some miles in extent ; but I did not make out that they saw much more
than ourselves, who commenced the descent, which was fatiguing enough.
We had, however, the consolation of a splendid view. To the left, and
lower than where we stood, were the glaciers of Lang Jokul, Blafell
Jokul, Gelt Jokul—mountains which from below had seemed as high as
Eyriks Jiikul itself. Kange on range of distant hills loomed in the far
distance, while northwards stretched a plain studded with innumerable
lakes, sparkling like cairngorms in the orange light of the setting sun;
while, still beyond, a broad gleam of glory revealed to us the vicinity
of the Arctic Sea. What illusive enchantment will not light throw on
objects most cheerless in themselves ! As seen by that gorgeous sun-
set the region below us seemed like the realm of fairyland; yet when
we came to know it better it was nothing but a wilderness, dreary,
waste, and barren. I might make comparisons about all this, and say
how hope may dress the dullest condition of life in the liveliest cohiurs,
how the deceitful hues vanish, and so on. I might do this, but I will
not. It is not the speciality of Umbra to moralize ; besides, it is the
truer philosoi)hy to enjoy what is bright and sunny while it lasts.
One remark I made as we descended. The shadows thrown on the
snow were so blue, that in some places it seemed as though indigo had
been spilt on the surface. Once or twice I stopped to make sure it was
shadow, and not blue rock. I had often observed before the blueness
of shadows on snow, but never had before seen it near so marked, wliich
I suppose may be ascribed to the clearness of the atmosphere. Tlie
moon had now risen ; at the foot of the snow we re-united the di\ided
Ijarties, and all proceeded together till we reached our horses.
We rode home in three hours, as quickly as the nature of the ground
would permit ; and the moon having disappeared, it required some care
to pick our way in the dark. I can remember now how pictures([ue
appeared the leading horsemen, splashing through the fretjueut fords.
There was nothing very pictures(pie in my friends themselves—English-
men in shooting-coats. I'ut bv that uurvrhiiu light, now lost to view,
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 423
now emerging fruiu shadow, tliey seemed worthy of being monnted
brigands painted by Wonvermaus. Even so does partial darkness in
some cases, as excess of light in otliers, enhance the effect.
We arrived at our tent at twelve : our expedition had taken exactly
thirteen hours in all. We snpped. The Key of Iceland had been
scaled. That night we slejit well.
At a place which is higher than the cloudy layer of
atmosphere in which the average temperature is 32°, a high
plateau, whose area may be about 30 square miles, forms a
high centre on which the supply of frozen water which falls
equals or exceeds the waste which melts.
The snow-heap is a cold mass which cools air and con-
denses vapour in it ; so it lasts and grows by robbing warm
air of heat and water ; by dragging down currents of cold damp
air from higher regions ; by condensing mist and gathering
clouds, which shield the snow-heap from the sun till they fall
upon it. Hekla, which is clear of snow, is oiten clear of mist
when neighbouring snowy mountains are invisible. Snaifell
is noted for fogs and rain. Bergen, near the ice, is called the
washpot of Xorway ; it rains and snows in the Alps when the
sun shines in Lombardy, France, and Germany. Eyriks
JokuU is seldom clear, for cold breeds cold, and snow begets
snow. After a day of rain the top of this snow-heap is
powdered with water-crystals. Winds Ijlow the water-dust
from exposed places, and it falls in the shelter, and fills up
holes. In clear calm weather the feathery snow melts and
becomes a bed of fine loose water-gravel, composed of lumps
of clear ice, which form by melting and freezing. During the
greatest heat this upper layer is wet and loose ; when the
sun sets it forms a crust.
Each drop of water, every roimded surface of ice, is a lens
which brings sunlight to a focus, and so water-drops and ice-
424 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE,
lenses help t(j melt the heap irregularly when the sun shines.
But on these high tops in Iceland, the sun shines all night at
midsummer. When the crust is wet and loose, about noon on
a fine day, walking on high snow-mountains is hard work every-
where. The loose damp surface, nearly frozen and yet almost
melted, partially supports a man ; but when the weight is on
one foot the neve yields like fine gravel on a wet beach, or dry
peat-dust on the top of a bog. Down goes the foot to tlie knee
or further, and it has to be dragged out of the hole for the next
step. In order to rise six inches at a stride, the body has to be
lifted two feet or more, and when that is done it falls again
witli a grievous jerk. The leader has this work to do, the next
in the line has easier work, and each follower finds the snow
at the bottom of the hole grow firmer like a kneaded snowball.
When the surface is in this state, surface water is filtering
through it, but it freezes in the shade below. In the early
morning, after a hot day and a cold night, mountain-climbing
is easy ; the upper layer is crisp and strong, and all is gain
where the foot neither sinks nor slides. The upper neve
on the (Jra3fa and Eyriks Jokull was like wet sand, which is
sandstone in frost, and a ci[uicksand at other times.
If sugar be sifted on one place, it forms a conical heap.
Snow which would form a conical mountain here presses
with vast force on its base, and till it consolidates the peak
tends to sink in and shove out the sides. So these Icelandic
and Norwegian snow-heaps are domes.
The lower part of the dome is like a well kneaded snow-
ball, watered and frozen, but thawing on a warm base. The
weight above kneads it, water sinking in wets it, and it is in
a region where frost is the rule ; but it stands on the lid of a
l)oiler. Water which sinks through neve flows over ice be-
neatli it, and I'ornis water-springs. Like rain-water, which
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 425
trickles tlirougli gravel aud flows out when it comes to rock,
springs of snow-water rise about the foot of the dome and neve,
and these water-pools rest upon hard blue ice.
If heat is strongest pools grow, multiply, and (jvertlow;
and streams join and fill lakes and rivers ; so glacier-streams
are in flood at various hours according to the distance from
the moimtains. At the head of the Lago de Guarda, where
there is a famous trout-fishery, the snow-flood comes down in
the evening. Near Hekla the spate in the Markarfljot is
about noon on a fine day. The difference is to be accounted
for l)y the distance from the snow-heaps, and the rate at which
water flows ; the cause of the flood is sunlight, and its power
may be seen in rills which flow from every snow-dome.
When the sun sets, pools cease to form above, and rivers
shrink in the plains soon after dark.
The plan of this local system is like the letter Q. The
dome is the Q, the tail is a tiny river-glacier pointing north-
east, ^.
The woodcut is taken partly from a sketch made from the
saddle, at a distance of about forty miles, at the point shown;
the map is copied from Gunlaugson's. Plan and elevation
together show the shape and position of this local system.
The plan of the plateau is angular and irregular, the elevation
shows a high plain with cliff and talus surmounted by a snow-
dome. Snaefell is 5808 Danish feet high ; EjTiks Jokull has
not been measured, but it is about as high ; it is nearly sur-
rounded by lava-floods, which flowed out of other mountains.
From the top Sntefell, Hekla, Myixlals Jokull, perhaps the
Orsefa ; hills about Eyafjord in the north, and Bardastrand on
the west—places about 200 miles apart—were seen on the 6th
of August 1862, and the plain below looked much the same
as it did to Umbra twenty years ago.
42G DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
From this lofty centre ](jwer sno-\v-tlonics like Ok Jokull,
and hog-backed ridges like Lang Jokull, Ball Jokull, etc.,
seemed mere rounded piles of snow, upon plateaux of bedded
Plan and Elevation.
Igneous rock
Fiom the sea
these forms had
suggested bubbles
or domes of
lava, coated with
snow ; a nearer
view biirst tl
bubl)l('S. From
Reykholt, near tlie
south-west coast,
up to Kalman-
stunga below tlie
mountain, a valley
gives a section lor
many miles. Tlie
rock is bedded
trap. Strata do
not dip awa\-
roni the moim-
tains as they would
if theywere sources
IVom which the
rocks tlowt'd ; they
dip regularly at a
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 427
small angle towards the niouiitaius, but the slope of the
coimtiy is the other way. So even liere, in the workshop of
fire, some denudmg force has cut diagonally over the angle of
tlic liruken crust.
( )n all these low hills are signs of glacial denudation ; l)ut
tlie marks are so covered with lava and other volcanic debris,
that their meaning is very obscure. One thing is plain
—
though numerous faults, dykes, and veins traverse these strata,
there was no upheaval by the dome-shaped moimtains, and
hog-backed ridges, whose structure is partly hidden Ijy snow-
domes. These mountains are remnants of a wide tract which
has been largely denuded, worn away, and partly destroyed l)y
some external force.
The escarpment of Eyriks JokuU gives a clear section, and
it shows horizontal layers of bedded igneous rock, like courses
of masonry. The Ljwer strata are friable beds of wldte sandy
tuff, and fine ashes, which show minute false bedding. They
contain small black glassy crystals, and large dark-coloured
cinders arranged like flints in chalk-beds. From the structure
of these lower beds the foundation is easily undermined.
Small streams, which have dug down to the white tuff, have
dug U ravines with vertical broken sides, in which the struc-
ture of the rock is clearly seen. ISTo sign of Surtrljrand, or
any other organic form, was disco\'ered. The steep slope is
a talus of loose rubbish, angle 32°. The clitf above it is
igneous rock laid in horizontal beds, and broken. The beds
split and break horizontally and vertically, so they weather
into angular blocks ; but nevertheless rounded stones are
strewed about the base of this slope. On the top of the cliff
a plain of rock a mile wide, on the south-western side of the
dome, is strewed with rounded boulders, loose angular stones,
and half melted snow-wreaths ; and there is no sign of recent
428 DENUDATION—FIIO.ST-MAliKS— LAND-ICK.
igneous action on any part of it. On this plain stands the
snow-dome. It is snow at the top, neve lower down, ice
at the bottom ; anil water-springs flow out over the ice,
form rills wliich flow over the plain, fall over the cliff, and
help to undermine it on their way to the sea. Waving dark
lines, which fringe the base of the snow-dome, and which were
supposed to be lava, are in fact a scolloped pattern of mor-
raiues ; loose piles of subangular lilocks of dark-coloiired
igneous rock, like the big stones which strew the plains below
the dome.
Either these are quarried liy the base of the dome, and
thrust upwards and outwards, or they were dropped on this
table-land, for there is nothing above them from which tliey
could fall.
It is manifest that the weight of this dome of hardened
slush must tend to thrust its crushed foundation outwards, as
in the case of ink dropped on paper (p. 96), or a snowball
thrown at a wall (p. l7o). But as the greatest resistance is
where the base is widest, the downward pressure ought to be
reflected, so as to thrust out stones at the weakest point, some-
where between the top and the base, where the moraines ap-
pear. If this dome were gone there would probably remain a
star of stria3 with a waving fringe of moraines, like those
which strew the plain.
If the system were on the North Vo\c, this radiating force
would push southwards along all meridians, and })ush farthest
where resistance was least. If a like system \\"ere on the
South Pole, it would push opposite ways. As the sun is to the
south of Eyriks JokuU during most of the time that it is above
the horizon, the dome slopes most towards the south, and it
a])proaclies the cliff at the north-eastern side. There—in a
liollow slicltercd fioiii the sun, and fi'oni the warm soutli-west
430 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
wind, exposed to the nortli, where the sun appears at mid-
night once or twice in the year, and to the cohl of Lang
Jokull ; in a phice well fitted for an ice-house—the snow-
dome thrusts out a small river-glacier. Its position is shown
on the map (p. 42 G).
It is like other river-glaciers. If it started from the
North Pole, this tail would grow down some meridian at first.
It now lies in a cold nook exposed to the cold north-east
wind, and it is digging a trench to contrast with water-work
on the other side. The ice-system here ends on a stone plain
which flowed roiuid this mountain, after the talus-heap had
formed, and long after the cliff had been torn, broken, or
chijiped out of a larger plain by some denuding agent.
If ever there were systems of this kind on the ])oles, or if
they exist now, and change place on some system, their
present and past movements must in some measure depend
on those of the revolving world ; and their old marks must
cither radiate along meridians or cross them if the tail of the
Q grows any w^ay but south, or north.
If these rock-devouring glacial systems are to be likened
to living things, local systems in Iceland are like star-fish
clinging to bait, or clustering on stones. There are many
small ones, but the biggest are those above named.
In Iceland the marks of Frost are on a vast scale, but they
are mingled with the work of Fire. These denuding and
upheaving forces are working natural engines—air, water, ice,
and steam, side by side—and their marks are mingled. Marks
made by glaciers upon igneous rock are the same as those
which are made by land-ice in Norway and Switzerland, on
rocks of all kinds ; Ijut the chips arc different. Here ice-
ground glens are partially filledwith lava ; water-worn boulders,
pebldes, and sand, arc smothered under sand which fell from
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 431
the air;great stones liavc Leen cast tlirougli tlie air and rest
amongst glacial ruLbisli. Snow is often blackened with
ashes ; ashes are whitewashed with snow ; water flows under
the lava, and there freezes and forms suljterranean glaciers.
Glacier-rivers caiTy fine mud, which glaciers grind ; l)ut it
is mixed with volcanic dust, sulphur, cinders, sticks, and all
things which rain can wash from such a land into the sea.
The sea-beach is strewed with lava and arctic shells
;
American drift timber, mahogany, strange sea-weeds of great
size; "horse-eyes" from the West Indies ; dead puffins from
the Arctic Ocean ; fish-bones and seals ; and sometimes the
Ai'ctic Current brings an ice-fleet—it may be freighted with
stones and mud picked up at Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen, or
Greenland. The surface of this land is a stone standard by
which to read geological hieroglyphics elsewhere.
Snffifell, the mountain shown in the plan and elevation at
page 85, seen from a distance of sixty miles from a ship's
deck at Eeykjavik, often seems to be a conical golden island
on the horizon, cutting sliarp and clear against a warm
evening sky, glowing with all the splendour of an arctic night.
On a bright clear morning it tells white agamst tlie cold blue
sky, like a tall cutter yacht with white sails. At this distance,
it seems to be a snow-cone A in the sea.
It is a cone streaming with radiating glaciers, which de-
scend to within a thousand feet of the sea now. It was an
island like Jan INIayen, because old marks on the low slopes
record that glaciers reached to the verge of the cliffs at Stapi.
The volcanic cone stands upon a plain of basalt. The" Dutchman's Cap," with its white cover, has a broad dark
brim, which ends in a range of low cliffs.
These make the " Staffa " of Iceland ; or rather, Staffa is
the " Stapi" of the Hebrides. The cliffs are breakuig away;
432 DENUDATION—FKOST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
the waves are hewing out strange stacks, pillars, and caves;
they are mining and blowing up the roof of the mines with
compressed air ; and the chips hewn from this strange sea-
cliff— this L shelf at the sea-level— furnish 1:)oidders and
sand for beaches. Here are plain sea-marks ; rock-shelf and
chips ; a cliff and beach ; under water the sea shoals gradually,
and the bottom is bare lava and black sand. Sea-work going
on below explains old marks above.
In riding along the verge of the land-cliff, a series of ice-
grooves are crossed. The bare slope of rock wliich makes the
brim of the hat is like a strange brown mosaic, half-polished,
and broken. The cliff shows ranges of basaltic colunms,
with the upper ends ground away. The marks record that
the basaltic mosaic work was in fact polished by ice. Nowcomes the question, What kind of ice ? Land-ice or sea-ice,
or both ? and tliat question is answered by the ice-marks.
All the grooves, for a distance of several miles, converge
upon a hollow, from wliicli a small stream of water flows ;
and when a cloud is on the hill, it seems to fall from the
clouds over a cliff. The rays of the star—the spokes of the
wheel—aim at the groove --
—
- in the slielf L.
But tliis cliff is a repetition of the sea-cliff only raised a
step ; and here and there are beds of rolled stones and sand,
which are identical with those on the beach, and in the sea.
No .shell was found in the few minutes that could 1)0 si)ared
for a searcli ; l)ut a more perfect sample of a raiscnl sea-
bottom wouhl be liard to find. The brim of the liat is a
rai.sed sea-mark, and tlie cliff which bounds tliis ])lain is a
second sea-mark—a second shelf—a co])y of the clilf l)ehjw.
Tliree steps may be traced from Sna'fell to Borgar Fjord;
and tliere are many smaller ste])S where the low land is
wide. JUit there are other marks. Ovt'r tlu' neck of the
^^....^v • 0^
ARCTIC CUHREXT—FLOATS—ICELAND. ^'^'^
peninsula, which is sunk beneatli the horizon in Fig. 18
(p. 85), a track leads from Stapi to Olafsvik. It winds ujd a
steep hill to the level of the top of the second cliff, and the
way lies up a slope of sand and water-worn stones, which
reach at least as high as the line at which glaciers end. The
only levelling tool available for this estimate was the lower
edge of a great sheet of cloud, which hung on all the high
grounds, and which neither rose nor fell for two days, though
it poured down floods of rain and piled snow on the hills. If
water-worn stones count as sea-marks, the sea was over this
isthmus. '
As the second cliff, the notcli in it, and the neck of the
isthmus, have been sunk to this level, Snsefell was, like Jan
Mayen, a volcano in the sea ; and probably the ice-marks on
the lower plateau were made by glaciers sliding in water.
But since these ice-marks were made by local glaciers,
lava-streams have flowed from the cone.
In the notch at which the ice-grooves aim, at the point
on which they converge, is a frozen stone cascade. The lava-
faU is now a hard, still, silent, cold, brown, stony cataract, at
the end of a stone torrent, but it seems in the very act of
falling down the hill, over a cliff of bedded igneous rock. Aslender stream of clear water runs from the same groove.
The water filters through the lava ; it comes from a
glacier, and the frozen torrent of blue ice now rests upon the
frozen torrent of brown stone, which seems to pour from under
it. The glacier leads to nev6, the neve to a snow-cone, and
the cone to the clouds, which prevented Umbra and his friends
from trying to scale this peak, and which drenched the party
who had camped on the brim of the Dutchman's hat at Stapi,
below Snaefell* Here is a regular series of records, which are
* The top of Snajfell was reached hv Sir Henrv Holland.
2 F '
t:U DENUDATION—FliOST-MAUKS—LAND-ICE.
easy to read beside the tools wliicli made the marks. Here,
between ocean-currents, are ocean-waves, glaciers, floats, and
a volcano ; raised sea-margins, and the dry bed of the sea.
At some time Sntefell was a volcanic cone in the sea. Aglacier flowed down from the top, split on the neck, spread
like a fan on the bed of basalt, and made its marks on the top
of the first cliff. A stream of lava flowed down the same
way, and melted the glacier, and froze in the groove, above
the second cliff. A young glacier fell from the clouds to
revenge his ancestors ; and there he now is, crushing the lava-
Hood, and trying to oust the offspring of fire from the den of
frost. At some time this land rose, and rain-water has not
yet washed the whole of the sea-beach into the sea.
This series implies change of climate as well as of sea-
level. When glaciers entered the sea, the cold air shell was
lower by the difference between the old marks and the present
glacier:—at a guess, about 1000 feet. But the rolled boulders
rise at least as high on the hill-sides, and cover grooved rocks.
If the sea were up to the boulders now, and the submer-
gence general, Iceland would be an archipelago ; and the
peninsula of Smcfell a long range of islands crossmg a
meridian diagonally (see p. 85). The Arctic Current is pass-
ing south-westwards sixty miles away ; if the sea %vere
up to the foot of the present glaciers and the old boulders, the
cold water would make the difference in climate, for glaciers
are said to enter the sea near Straumness, and in Greenland.
The record then seems to read thus—Fire raised the sea-
bottom at least 1000 feet, made a weir in the stream,
turned the ice-floats and their climate of frost sixty miles out of
their course, and so moved the local glacial period further west.
Even the date is not omitted. Since heavy ice marked the
rock on the top of the cliff, on which loose sand and washed
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOxVTS—ICELAND. 43.")
boiilders are packed, a stream of rimuiug water has not worn an
inch of basalt ; for ice-grooves et?e 03a rocks which are in tlic
stream during floods. Find the rate at which this stream cuts,
and the date may be turned into time. (See above, chap ix.)
There has been a sturdy fight between fire and frost for
this moimtaiii fortress, and for the present fire has the upper
hand The weir has sent the ice-fleet, with its cargo of pohir
cold, west to Greenland ; and the Gulf Stream nms up imder
shelter of the stone rampart laden with heat and tropical
wares. On the beach under Sntefell trees with their roots
and scraps of bark, logs of mahogany, and seeds which grow
in Jamaica, at the nearest, roll in the surf.
These stone records may be used to interpret others.
The Norwegian coast, a little north of Trondlijem, which
corresponds in latitude to Sntefell, is far more ice-ground,
but there is no ice there in summer now, and very little snow.
Climate was colder in Norway, and is now far warmer.
The opposite corresponding coast of Greenland is now in its
" glacial period ;" because the cold stream runs down on one
side, and the warm stream runs up on the other. It seems
as if a rise of 1000 feet at Snsefell had changed the climate of
part of Iceland ; an equal rise in Lapland would change the
course of the Arctic Current from the Wliite Sea to Bear
Island, and send it west from Sweden to Greenland. Wliat
has happened at one spot may have happened elsewhere.
Ice-marks in Iceland are then peculiarly instructive, for
they are on the borders of a glacial period and in the den
of fire. Large local systems are at work on the high grounds,
and two currents are contending in the sea ; while under
groimd a power is at work which shakes the earth and lifts
and lowers the sea-bottom. Ice-marks are made upon rocks
which were fluid, and similar rocks are found in Spitzbergen,
436 DKNL'DATION—FROST-MAUKS—LAND-irE.
in Bear Island, in Greenland, in Iceland, in the Faro Islands,
in the Helirides, in Ireland, in Germany, in France, in North
America,
If one bit of a frozen crust of basalt moves up and down in
Iceland where volcanoes are active, the same crust may have
risen or sunk an}"\vhere in the world. That seems to be the
meaning of rock inscriptions carved about Sntefell.
From Akreyri, and from other stations in the north, small
vessels sail towards Greenland every summer to angle for
sharks. They go armed with marvellous tackle, great hooks,
very long lines, and vast reels. They make fast to the edge
of the ice, or anchor just outside of it in great depths ; and
then these nortliern bait-fishers bob for sliarks between the
Gulf Stream and the Arctic Current. These hardy sportsmen
return in autumn with the spoils of the "long chap," and
boil up a legion of odours which rival the perfumes of
Hammerfest and Cologne. They make sandals of his rough
hide, and oil of his fat liver ; stick up his jaws and mar-
rowless bones to ornament their boiling-houses ; and by all
accounts it miist be good fun this bobbing for sharks near
Greenland. The Hammerfest men also fish for sharks about
Bear Island. There is always a chance of a passage to
the ice-world in some French or English vessel bound
from Granville or Peterhead to the north in search of
whales, cod, and other marine monsters of sorts and sizes.
Any one who has time and spare cash can get a peep at
the Arctic Current with its ice-floats, by giving up a season
to a voyage in a shark-boat or cod-fisher ; but small pleasure
is to he got by dwelling with dead fish on board a rolling
ship in wintry weather, for a whoh^ summer. A yacht or a
well-luund shi]) is a costly luxury ; and those who own them
.seldom follow iho lead of Dulferiu and l^amont. 'i'he eastern
AlU'TIC CURRENT—FLOATS—JCELAiND. 487
coast of Greeulaiid opposite to Iceland Is a blank on the chart
of the world, because of the ice-tloats.
Following a south-westerly curve from Jan Mayen, the
arctic stream reaches a part of Iceland, which seems to be a
raised sea-bottom.
The north-western corner of the island is a peninsula,
whose isthmus divides two great bays—Hiinalloi on the
north-east, and Breida Fjordr on the south-west—and the
S(jutli side of the latter bay is a lung peninsula which sepa-
rates it from Faxe Fjordr. A tract of low country separates
all these bays, and joins the isthmus to Eyriks Jokull and the
high mountains of the interior.
The stream which Parry found moving soutliwards with a
wliole continent of ice towards Spitzbergen ; which Lamont
saw moving ice-floes south-west at the rate of from five tu
eight miles at Spitzbergen ; which Scoresby found moving
great icebergs south-west along Greenland—flows south-east '/V ->'
past Jan IMayen, and past Straumness, on the north-western —-
—
point of Iceland, with fleets of ice. It aims directly at Iceland,
and would flow over the low land, so as to join Hruta Fjordr
and Hvanis Fjordr, and sweep down Laxardalr, Hauka-
dalr, Hitardalr, Grotadalr, Hraundalr, Borgar Fjordr, and the
Faxe Fjordr, if all Iceland were sunk a few hundreds of feet.
The island lies in the course of the stream. Ice is con-
stantly running foul of it now, and there seems plenty ol'
evidence to prove that the land was sunk, enough to let the
sea run over the low lands of the whole island.
At Melar (or sand-heaps), at the head of Hruta Fjordr, are
numerous well-marked raised beaches, of the usual pattern.
l)ut with miusual sweeping ridges, which may have been
caused by heavy sea-ice urged forward from tlie north-east,
and stranded amongst the boulders. At the (jther side of the
438 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
isthmus, at Houkardalr, are great sandbanks, and long ridges
of boulders stretching into the sea, out of the glens. Canib-
ness is a specimen. All down the northern side of the penin-
sula of Snajfell are raised beaches at various elevations ; and
near Snrefell, and elsewhere, are beds, nioimds, and hills, of
rolled boulders, sand, and ashes, which crown the summit of
cliffs many hundred feet above the present sea-level. Very
clear ice-grooves run horizontally on hill-sides along the coast.
If these were now at the bottom of the sea—where they
have certainly been—and if the whole land were sunk to the
same level, the isthmus woiild be entirely submerged, and the
plain which joins it to Ejaiks JokuU, and the whole country
about Borgar Fjord, would be a shelving midulating sea-
bottom furrowed by submarine valleys and glens. Tlie largest
of these glens run nearly south-west and north-east ; luit if the
whole oi' Iceland were at the same level, then other low tracts
in the centre of the island would be soimds. Sprengisandr,
with its piles of rubbish, would be a strait ; the Geyser vaUey
would be a sound ; and the present course of rivers would be
tlie course of the Arctic Cun-ent—north-east and south-west.
Icc-mnvks nnd sea-marks abound every^vhere.
In the Geyser valley an; endless ridges and points, liills
(ind terraces of sand and l)oidders, " kames" and " osar,'
extending up and down slrenni, and pointing at Jan Mayen,
its a vane points at the Mind.
Sprengisandr and that district is a desert of hills com-
])0sed of loose stones and sand, disposed in ridges which point
the siinic way. Tlu iv is neither soil nor vegetation, and it
looks like a sea-bottom lelY 1iy tlie tide. The stone-heaps rest
u]ioii lava, IJut- if the sea were now at these deposits, the
mountains, and in particular Eyriks Jokull and Snajfell,
would lieconie that wliieh they i)robably were before Iceland
AIJGTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELANJt. 43'J
was last raised. Tliey would be a group of steep rocky islaud..;
of lava and bedded trap, covered with snow, streaining with
glaciers, and siuTOimded by floating ice drifting south-west.
Ice would do that which ice is doing under water, neai-
Bear Island, Spitzbergen, Greenland, and Jan Mayen. Float .s
would beat against the islands, In'eak down slopes ttj make
cliffs, and carry off the chips ; while land-ice liollowed out
glens, and freighted icebergs with moraines.
The sloping sea-bottom would be grooved and ground, and
rounded, scratched, and polished, in cei'tain directions, and
strewed with fragments torn from the hills ; or with delnis
floated from the far north. The hierogly})hics seem to tell tlie
traveller who crosses low lands in Iceland, that he is on an
ancient sea-bottom like that which surrounds Jan Mayen.
At first this seems impossible, for nearly all tlie glens that
run into the Faxe Fjord contain streams of well-preserved
lava.
These generally })ush the river whicli belongs to the
valley to one side, and each lava-stream leads uj) to a doul)le
system of volcanic cones of loose and very brittle materials ol'
various colours—red, black, and yellow—from which the lava-
streams rose. The lava is not water-worn, and many of
the cones are yet entire. It seems impossible that glaciers
and an ice-laden sea can ever have worked where stones
are sharp, brittle, and easily moved, like slag and cinders
beside a furnace. But on looking more closely it appears
certain that sea-ice swept in a south-westerly direction, from
Hunafloi into the other bays ; for the engine has done its
usual work of groovmg and polishing, and the marks point
at the course of the stream. It seems to be recorded that
land-ice dug rounded glens in the hills and pushed the
chips into the sea ; that the sea and its ice broke down the
i-tO DEN UDATION—FKOST-ilAltlvS—LAND-ICE.
land, (Hit oft' the ends of the gieus, and carried the ruin to
strew it on the bottom where it lies ; and that the lava-streams
are modern, though iar older than the history of Iceland.
In all the glens named above, and in many others, even on
high ridges, ice-marks still are fresh and distinct as they are
beside a glacier, and many point JST.E. Sea-marks appear atmany
places about the same level ; a thousand feet would sink nearly
all the rivers, and all the inhabited land, and bring the Arctic
Current to the present snow-line. Where the sea is chilled
the snow-line falls on it, and it seems to have fallen here.
But after frost had left his marks upon old trap rocks
which fire had brewed long before, fire took up the work
again, repaired the damage done by the enemy, and partially
hid the scars. Old sea-beaches, and iced rocks, sand, and
bonlders, of marine and glacial origin, are often smothered,
and mingled with ashes, cinders, lavas, and volcanic cones of
a later date. The works of denudation, deposition, and up-
heaval, have gone on together as they do elsewhere ; and they
have gone on for a long time.
It seems that Iceland was a group of islands of bedded trap
and ashes, with seams of brown coal, surromided by ice-
floats, and with volcanic cones rising from an icy sea. This
was a group upon which storms, ice, and ocean-currents sj^ent
their fcjrce till the old land was weU nigh swept away ; and
then new land rose up, with the worn-out land on its back,
scarred and wounded, and strewed with ruin. Then Surtr,
having gained a victory over the sea, let off the steam, and a
grand display of volcanic eruptions near the shore, and in the
glens amongst sand and boidders, where the crust was thin
and weak ; and so ni'arly hid the works of frost beneath the
ivmains of extinct fireworks.
The inargins of Faxe Fjordr and Ihcide Kjortlr; the stony
ARCTIC CUKKENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 441
plains of central Iceland, the low boggy plains witli their dry
stony ridges of boulders extending for miles like artificial
causeways ; the great cliffs of bedded trap, with faults and
dykes, heaves and slips, cutting across rounded glens ; the
small cones and their lava-Hoods resting upon old ice-marks;
the fjords, glens, valleys, rivers, grooves, and scratches, all point-
ing north-east—can only be accounted for by supposing that
this is a volcanic district, raised up in the midst of the same
icy sea which is now flowing past it.
But all this denudation, deposition, and upheaval, took
place a very long time before men took up their abode in
Iceland a thousand years ago. The first colonists built their
altars in 870, upon a low point of ice-ground columnar basalt,
which a slight depression would submerge ; and the old sea-
level shown by boulders would cover the edge of the rift
where the Oxera has been working far above water for a
thousand years at least.
So here, when human history is brought in contact with
geological records, the two scales seem out of all proportion.
A thousand years in the life of a stream does not account for
a trench two feet deep at Thingvalla ; a thousand years of
weathering have not obliterated marks half an inch deep,
which were made by sea-ice near the house of Snorro
Stmieson, about the head of the Borgar Fjordr.
That seems to be a rough translation of part of the Saga
which Frost and Fire have written on the world's surface in
Iceland.
It is always weU to quote a witness who gives evidence
without intending to support a case.
In Goold's book on Iceland,* the following passage
occurs (p. 297) :—
* Iceland ; its Scenes and Sagas. Smith, Elder, and Co., 1803.
442 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-iCE.
" On Sunday evening, I galloped with Griuir and the son o! the
archdeacon to Bjarg, the farm where (Jrettir was born and spent his
childhood. To reach it, we rode up the vale, passing the church of
Statharbakki, and crossing the river where the banks contract and the
hills become steeper. Our path lay over the shoulder of a hill, the
rocks completely smoothed and grooved by glacial action.
" The striae run from N.N.E. to S.S.W. There are, however, no
mountains near from which glaciers could have descended. Above Bjarg
is a long hill, with the rock exposed in several places. I found it every-
where polished. It is strewn with blocks of stone, one of which, a
grettistak, measuring forty feet in circumference, and fifteen feet eleven
inches in height, rests on a pivot like a logau-stone. This huge mass,
in being moved along the smooth rock, has scored a furrow about
twelve feet long. This is only one amongst numerous blocks which lie
thus resting at the end of ruts in the polished surface. Tlie larger of
these stones rest on the top of the hill, and they diminish in size
towards the bottom of the valley."
Mr. Goold has not recorded which way the stones have
moved, nor does he give the elevation of tlie lull on which they
rest ; hut a line drawn N.N.E. to S.S.W. from Bjarg cuts the
liead of the Hvams Fjord, where sinular strite are ibiuid
high ixp on the range which makes the southern horn of that
large hay. Whether the stone was moved towards the sea,
or i'rom it, it is plain that a vast sheet of movmg ict^ must
have covered these low grounds when it was moved. If
Iceland rose in the Arctic Current, great floes and glaciers
may have slid every way for a long time after the rise, even
over such low lands as the northern coast where Bjarg lies.
The evidence given hy ice and its marks, in this case,
seems to prove—by old inscriptions, far older than any saga,
lait easier to read
—
iJiat Teelaud rose in tlu; Arctic Current
which was moving I'rom N.li to S.W., or tlierehy ; and that
it changed its climate when it liad risen the first of a series of
1000 feet, so as to turn tlie cold stream sixty miles towards
America, and away from Euroi)e.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—ICELAND. 443
The woodcut below may give some faint idea of the strange
shapes into which beds of igneous rock are carved. The liill
drawn is on the north-west coast of the Sna-fell peninsula,
near the word "stri;e" on the map (p. 85). Horizontal and
slightly inclined beds, which are conspicuous on this coast,
are easily distinguished. Some are columnar, and can be fol-
lowed right round the heads of high glens ; and when the
col is crossed, the same series of beds recur at the head
of the next glen. The hollows have been carved out of
the hills, and the hills shorn from the points ; old beaches
mark the old sea-level, and ice-grooves point along the course
of the Arctic Current with its ice-floats. It seems fair to
suppose that these are tool-marks of this natural engine
wliich is driven l:)y frost and fire down the coast of Iceland.
Fig, go. Kirku Fell and Grunda Vik (Church Fell ami Shallow Bay).
Sketched from a raised beach, August 15, 1802. The hills consist of bedded igneous rock,
"denuded ;" and show marks of ancient sea-margins, and ice-marks ; at various eleva-
tions. Weathering is to be measured by small talus heaps. River-marks are insignifi-
cnnt in this trart.
CHAPTER XXVI.
DENUDATION 18— FROST-MAllKS 1(3— LAND-ICE 15— ARCTIC
CURRENT 4— FLOATS G— GREENLAND, LABRADOR, NEW-
FOUNDLAND, ETC.
The peculiar climate of Iceland is a good example of the
effect of ocean-currents on temperature.
The island is in a wide sea, which joins the Pacific north-
wards, and extends southwards almost to the Pole ; and the
situation is " insular."
To the east and west are two tracts of land, sinular in
elevation, and similarly placed on the globe—Scandinavia and
Greenland. One is a peninsula, the other a large island.
West of Greenland is a lal)yrinth of sounds, hays and fjords,
islands, points, and lowlands, and a few mountains in North
America. East of Scandinavia is continental land in Europe
and Asia. If wide lands promote cold, and wide seas warmtli
and moisture, Iceland is in the warmest and w^ettest berth to
be found near the Arctic Circle. Scandinavia is in a drier
and colder position than Greenland. Northern Europe and
Asia have less water about them than North America, and
ought to be colder. If wick; seas make mild climates, the
climate of Iceland ought to be milder than that of Hittern,
and such-like large islands to the eastward in similar latitudes;
and Scandinavia ought to be colder than Greenland, because
it lies next to the largest block of land. Fu fact, Hittern and
the country about the Namsen are far warmer tlian Greenland
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—CREENLAND, ETC. 445
or Iceland, and the climate of Iceland is very dry and favour-
able for consumptive patients. Ocean-currents seem to make
the difference. Iceland is between the Arctic Current and the
Gulf Stream, and has a climate which is colder than Scan-
dinavia, but warmer than Greenland, as proved by glaciers,
plants, and animals. Hittern, off Norway, grows plenty of
corn, and has a large poj)ulation of thriving farmers. There
is hardly a patch of snow to be seen on the hills in summer
;
trees and plants flourish ; and red-deer, roe, blackcock, and
other game make the coimtry- very like Scotland. No corn
grows in Iceland, and very few trees ; but there is excellent
grazing and some rude hay-making. Nobody seems to know
what grows or lives on the corresponding coast of Greenland
;
but glaciers abound tliere and reach the sea. The equatorial
stream lands tropical seeds, mahogany logs, and solar heat
collected in the south, on the south-western coast of Iceland.
The polar stream brings northern frost-growths, and beats
fidl on the north-eastern coast. Fleets of ice are always
cruising to the westward, and eddies in streams of air and
water which are passing up and down occasionally strand
an ice-squadron with a cargo of cold and drift, amongst the
north-eastern fjords. Then even the hay-harvest fails. The
climate approaches a "glacial period," from which the island
takes tune to recover ; nipped trees do not gTow up again,
and frozen hay-fields take time to thaw.
This tendency to a " glacial period" in Iceland does not
result from any gTcat change in the solar system in general,
or in the earth in particular, but from gales and local eddies
in streams of air and water, which seem to be constant in tlieir
flow, and regular in their general movements.
When the polar ice drifts far to the west, near the fast ice
of Greenland, the season is mild. When the ice drifts near
446 DENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
the coast of the island, there is wild wintry weather ; when it
lands, cold winter lands with it, and Jack Frost takes com-
mand of the whole country. The rainfall is uncertain and
irregular. When cold dry polar wuids come from the north
or north-east, and the equatorial stream of air is thrust out of
the way, the weather is fine and the air is clear, keen, and
bracmg. The sun's rays are powerful, because they are not
absorbed by fogs or clouds ; the weather is hot in the shelter.
Ice melts fast, rivers swell, and the skin of those who are un-
used to such a climate dries up, shrivels, and cracks from
excessive evaporation. The glacial period seems to be passing
away from Iceland;
panting travellers ride in their shirt
sleeves, in clouds of yellow dust, and shade their eyes from
the heat and glare of lava and sand glowing in a fierce bright
smi.
When warm wet south-westers blow, they condense their
loads of water about the snowy mountains, and hide them
from the destroying sun in mists and clouds. The weather
becomes warm and thick, and muggy below ;" tlioka" (mist)
hides every landmark ; travelling is cheerless, and even dan-
gerous. But when two streams meet in the air, great ridges of
boiling cloud form visibly in the sky ; there is the appear-
ance which Scotch peasants call a " Noah's Ark "—a cloud-
form whose approach heralds a downpour of water and a
battle of winds, a raging sea and a wild storm, worthy of the
strife between heat and cold. The " glacial period" seems to
descend, for fresh snow covers the hills, and shivermg tourists
in the plain begin to talk of home, and to vote " travelling in
such a confomided country an unmitigated bore."
Iceland, with its insular position, is the battle-field of the
]^owers of the air and sea, the very workshop of the engines
which carve the earth's crust ; and it bears marks of the strife
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS— GREENLAND, ETC. -i-i?
on its hills and glens. The climate proves that spots on the
globe may have very different climates at different ages, if only
the beds of ocean-currents change.
But changes are taking place in the beds of the ocean-
currents which thus influence climate in Iceland now, and
sunilar changes may have produced like results on a larger
scale ; and it is only by following the Ai'ctic Current that the
extent of possible changes in climate can be estimated.
The Arctic Current, after passing Iceland, curves west-
wards to Cape Farewell in the latitude of the Shetlands,
Bergen, Christiania, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg. The
stream turns round the point, like an eddy behind a post
(p. 127). The floats turn up stream, as froth turns back in the
dead water at Lower Hope, or at the tail of any one of the
islands in the Thames, " Deadman's Eyot," or " the Eushes"
(p. 114). The curves described are like those showni in the
cut (p. 130), which is copied from a photograph of " Craggie,"
in the Findhom. There is an eddy at the tail of the bank.
Off "the tail" of Greenland, arctic currents join, as the branch
which leaves the Thames at Upper Hope joins the main stream
at Bargeman's Bridge (p. 114). The Thames, and currents of
cold water wliich flow from the polar basin, are but streams
which carry floats, and the same laws seem to govern the
movements of all streams. The floats in one case are froth.
The streams which flow from Baffin's Sea, Davis' Strait, and
Hudson's Strait, carry " west ice," and " Spitzbergen, or store
ice," and jom the other fleet between Cape Chidley and Cape
Farewell.
The floats are sea-ice on the scale described above, and land-
ice bunt on slips in Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen, and all the coasts
of Greenland and North America, between 82° and G0° north
latitude, but worn and weatherbeaten after the long voyage.
448 DENUDATIOX—FROST -MARKS—LAND-ICE.
Tlio movements of these floats may l)e leanieil liom books,
and inferred from any frozen stream ; the nature of their work
must be learned from old marks on shore, and inferred from
the manoeuvres of the ice-fleet. Eoss saw an iceberg off Cape
Farewell, July 7, 1827. An iceberg, measured by Parry, was
aground in 720 feet, and it was 860 feet thick. It was amass
about as big as Arthur's Seat, or North Berwick Law, or Dech-
mont. It had run aground in a strong current, and must
have left a conspicuous mark. The actual mark under water
cannot be seen ; but it is fair to infer that marks on shore
near Christiansand were made by similar engines in similar
latitudes, becaxise the marks resemble the touch of land-ice, and
correspond to marks made by small streams which leave their
beds open to inspection. Heavy ice always moving one way,
unless driven out of its way by a strong wind, must end by
making tracks like a land-glacier. A stranded island hang-
ing on a rock in a. stream; gradually melting, and slowly
changing its place ; spun round like a top by lighter ice, charg-
ing down stream, or rolling along the coast like the wheel of a
carriage—is a tool which must groove and drill, and make
ruts.
In the seas which correspond to the Skagerrack and the
Pentland Firth, the bottom must be scored in the direction
which currents now follow. Off the eastern coast of Green-
land, the lines of glacial deniidation must run from N". 30° E.
to S. 30° W., or thereby ; on the western coast the marks must
run T;p from S.E. to N.W. ; along the coast of Labrador the
stream moves from N.W. to S.E. ; and every local tide and big
river must divert the floats from the main line of their funeral
march to the warm south.
But wherever the way is clear the line of march trends
south and west ; and wherever a mark is made it nnist record
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—CREENLAND, ET(!. 449
that fact. The line of movement is laid down on the ma|)
(p. 232).
All the sea-ice that forms in winter in those seas, and all
the heavy land-ice which lasts so far, works down the coast of
Labrador to the Straits of Belleisle and the banks of Newfound-
land, in the latitudes of the English Channel, France, and
Switzerland. Off Newfoundland the Gulf Stream melts gi^eat
part of the ice, and sinks the cargo of stones and mud, shipped
in the north, consigned to the south, and wrecked on the
banks.
The warm current flowing from the Gulf of Mexico towards
Disko, Iceland, and Spitzl^ergen, scatters this long ice-proces-
sion ; but survivors straggle over the Atlantic, and work south
as far as the latitude of the Azores, Sicily, Greece, and Asia
Minor ; but no iceberg is ever found near the European bank
of this double stream.
The distribution of floating stones is thus limited to the
course which the ice-Hoats take on this long voyage. No
ice-floats now pass to the eastward of the curve which divides
the Arctic Current from the Gulf Stream. If similar currents
once flowed over Europe, their limits and their direction
should be marked out by tool-marks and chips—by grooves
Avhere water was shallow and ice-floats grounded ; by glacial
drift where the floats melted and dropped moraines and
beaches. In the map (p. 232), the actual line of heavy drift is
transferred to the districts described and mentioned above.
If at any time an arctic current passed south without
meeting a warm stream, and also passed near a system of land-
ice, upon high ground, in a southern latitude, like the glacier
system of the Himalayas, a " glacial period " might prevail
about the latitude of the Azores, or further south, for a time,
without any great change in the world or the solar system.
2 (I
450 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
If the icebergs wliicli do in fact drift so far in tlic Atlantic,
no^v run foul of a solitary rock or shoal, they must leave a
mark. Wherever they finally melt, there they must drop the
last stone, to make a full stop at the end of the ice-record of
the present.
If the Isthmus of Panama were sunk, the stream which
now runs westward into the Gulf of INIexico would not swing
eastward to Europe as it does now ; and there would be a
colder world on Atlantic shores if there were no Gulf Stream.
In short, an arctic current might bring down an arctic climate
from the upper regions of the air in any latitude.
The general system of North Polar glacial action may be
likened to the small local land-system at Eyriks Jokull, of
which a plan and drawings are given above (p. 426). The
small land-system has the shape of a tadpole—a rounded head
with a tail. The big sea-system has the same form, but the
tail is bent like a comma ).
The centre of the arctic system is a round polar basin,
upon which frozen water accumulates ; the basin has a broken
edge, and frozen streams are thrust out like the glacier, p. 420.
The small land-glacier is not affected by the earth's rotation;
the frozen tail of this tadpole is straight ; Ijut the half-melted
jointed tail of ice-floats is long and pliable, and it is bent
westward. The stream does not flow down meridians from
the I'ole to the British Isles, but bends westward from
Spitzbergen past the Straits of I]elleisle and Cape Pace;
and thence the cold water rims down the coast of North
America, inside tlie warm stream which is turned aside at
Panama, as the Thames is turned by the bank at Lower
Hope (p. 114).
The same causes which affect climate in Iceland take
effect furtlier south.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—OREENLAND, ETC. 451
A paper concerning the North Atlantic Telegraph Route
published in 1861, gives a great deal of information about the
southern coast of Greenland. In July 1860, Sir Leopold
]\PClintock sailed in the "Bulldog," and carried a line of
soundings along the proposed route.
Between the Faro Isles and Iceland, 280 miles, the depth
was generally less than 1800 feet. The sea, at a depth of 600
feet, had a warm temperature of about 46°. Large ice-floats
are never found in this part of the Atlantic ; they could not
last in such water. Arctic drift only appears on the south
coast of Iceland two or three times in a century.
The last appearance of drift-ice in Faxe Fjordr was
in 1683. In 1783 a volcano burst forth about thirty miles
from the coast, off Reykjanes, and there formed an island
in water 1200 feet deep. The island still exists as a dan-
gerous shoal. So a power is now at work under this sea,
which is sufdcient to alter the run of the currents, and so
change the climate by raising obstructions in the bed of the
stream.
From Iceland to Greenland the depth is greater and the
sea colder. The greatest depth was 9432 feet in mid-channel
;
within forty miles of Greenland the depth decreased from
4800 feet to 1368 in three and a haK miles. The temperature
at 600 feet decreased, as the vessel sailed about south-west
;
from 46° near Iceland to 39° near Greenland.
In this temperature ice can exist, and it abounds. This
stream of cold water brings down the cold shell of climate,
and thus ice-floats carry a glacial period down to Capo Fare-
well. Land-ice abounds on shore, because of the movements
of sea-ice, and these depend on the shape of the sea-bottom.
On the 18th of August the western Greenland shore was
blockaded by such vast accumulations of drift-ice that the
452 DENIHATIOX—FHOST-MARKS—LAND-ICK.
expedition could not approach within forty-five miles, where
the depth was 7050 feet.
From Greenland to Hamilton Inlet in Labrador is 550
miles ; the sea is deep, the bottom " oaze," which is mudand microscopic shells ; but w^ithin eighty miles of the coast,
the sea is only 900 feet deep. Hamilton Inlet nearly corre-
sponds to the seas off Liverpool and Newcastle. Icebergs
very rarely enter the mouth of the inlet, and there are no
glaciers building icebergs on shore ; but during winter and
spring drifting ice prevents all access to Labrador.
For a breadth of about eighty miles this sea-bottom is
liable to be scraped by anything wdiich grounds in 900 feet,
and bergs in the north ground in 1500 and more. The drift
here j)asses southwards and eastwards along the eastern coast.
The natives are hunters, the strangers are traders and trap-
pers. The vegetation near the coast is very scanty, the hills
rocky and undulating ; but at the head of this long firth
the country is clothed with forests of spruce, white pine, and
white birch.
In the latitude of Chesliire, there is a country and climate
like Swedish Lapland. The inland sea freezes every winter to
a depth of three feet, and there are local tides which run with
great velocity to move this engine, and grind these coasts
with native sea-ice.
In the latitude of the Slietlands in Greenland the firths
are frozen in winter ; there are local tides and native bergs;
and there is heavy foreign drift outside.
Sir Leopold M'Clintock says
—
" It is well known tliul a lunent I'lnni tin; Nuitli Atlantic Ocean
beara along witli it all this ice, round Cape Farewell, and np tlie west
coast of Gicciilaiid fur several hundred miles. It carries the drift-ice
I'or the most ]tart aloni;- the onter islands, and it is only when there is
ARCTIC CUHltEXT—FLOATS—CREKXLAND, ETC. 453
a strong wind blowing iu from the sea, that the ice conies in between
the islands and enters the fjords. It is almost exclusively low or flat
ice which thus drifts in ; the larger masses and icebergs, which draw
more water, nearly always keep themselves in the main stream along
the outer islands."
But this is about the latitudes of Christiaiiia and Stavaiiger
in Southern Scandinavia, and it has been shown above that
low grounds in Southern Scandinavia are grooved and strewed
with glacial water-drift. In all Scandinavia there is not an
iceberg now ; at Hammerfest the sea never freezes ; no iceberg
ever gets even to Iceland now ; at Eeykjavik fresh-water ice
is seldom eighteen inches thick, and the sea never freezes :
but upon the south-west coast of Greenland, where the cold
stream flows in the latitude? of Shetland, " there is usually
impenetrable ice fjr eight months out of the twelve." On the
coast of Labrador the heavy drift passes beyond the latitude of
Cornwall, but it loses in size and weight as it drifts south.
According to the authorities quoted, moraines and slices of
ice-foot, and stones picked up or launched from Spitzbergen,
may sail with " the Spitzbergen or store ice," round Cape
Farewell, up nearly to the Arctic Circle, and down the coast of
Labrador to the Straits of BeUeisle ; while others launched
from the eastern and western coasts of Greenland, and from
lands north of America, do constantly drift down the eastern
coast of North America into the Atlantic on " the west ice."
The pure immixed ice which grows in the vast area of Baffin's
Sea, and in the different channels which join it to the polar
seas, moving together with these " ice-islands" in ocean-cur-
rents of these dimensions, in shallow seas, form an engine large
enough to account for denudation and transport of chips on a
scale which can only be measured by mountains and glens on
.shore. A paper by ^Ir. Taylor gives a description of the
454 IiENUDATION—FROST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
fjords of 8()utli Greenland, lie compares tlieni to the Nor-
wegian fjords al30ve described. The land is low, near the
coast, and the hills are rounded. The mountains rise from
1500 to 6000 feet above the sea. The scenery is magniticent
and desolate;
grass, heath, flowers, and dwarf willow grow in
favoured spots ; Init soil is so thin that the Esquimeaux bury
their dead under cairns. Of 10,000 Scandinavian colonists
who once occupied this land, no traces remain but ruined
houses and cairns. Their history from 986, when Eiric the
Red found the land, till the colony perished or was lost, is re-
corded in Icelandic Sagas, which also record the famous dis-
covery of America, a.d. 1000. After the ice came down, the
history is a blank. About Julianshaab many of the fjords
run up to the " continental ice," and hold glaciers which
reach the sea and become icebergs. The " continental ice " of
Greenland, like other local ice-systems, has a radiating motion
from the interior towards the coast and all points of the com-
pass. The glaciers, like other river-glaciers, " bring down
boulders, sand, and mucli fine clay, the result of attrition ; the
l)oulders are always rounded," as elsewhere. The clay makes
the sea milky and turbid for several miles. " So vast has
l^een the quantity, and so long the period during which this
transport of clay has proceeded, that some of the fjords have
been so completely filled up l)y it, that they are only navigable
in boats of light draught and at high water." According to
Mr. Taylor, glaciers have choked up their channels, and the
ice has found other slips on which to launch icebergs. Nearly
all the fjords have or have had glaciers in tliem. Icebergs
thus grown in the latitude of Sajtarsdal (p. 218, chap, xvii.),
where ice-marks can be traced for 100 miles, would ground
in 300 feet, according to the view of the projectors of the
telegraph, who wanted to prove the possibility of landing
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—(iREENLAND, ETC. 45f)
their cable where ice could not cut it. The drift outside Hoats
deeper. The whole interior of Greenland seems to he like
the Vatna Jokull in Iceland, and that small snow-patch still is
an unexplored waste, though Iceland has been thickly peopled
by a very enterprising race for a thousand years. The people
who colonized Greenland, discovered America, and made their
name famous at Constantinople, fail to make their way through
a district no l^igger than Yorksliire.
Trace Greenland on a globe, cut out the shape in paper, and
the paper will cover India, or Arabia, or great part of Europe.
That is the size of a "glacial period" which is on Green-
land now, and was on Scandinavia at some time ; and the
cause of the change of climate seems to be the turning of
streams by powers which work under the sea-bottom, and
tilt the basins which hold the sea.
Note the shape of the Greenland coast—the fjords, that
aim at the continental ice—and with these compare the fjords
and ice-marks of Scandinavia above described, and the diagram,
p. 192. They coincide with the radiating direction of move-
ment in the local land-ice system, which is described as work-
ing denudation on shore, and cumbering the sea with chips,
about an area equal to India, in Greenland.
A view of the ice-world about lat. 47° and 62° is given in
The Voyages of H.M.S. " Eosmwnd," by Lieut. Chappell, in
1813 and 1814.*
In the month of May, off Cape Eace, in thirty-six fathoms
(216 feet), icebergs were seen in the latitude of the Bay of
Biscay. On the 23d a great iceberg was seen to capsize, and
the coast was encircled with an impenetrable zone of crystal.
Having penetrated to Broyle Bay—an open harbour with an
open sea—the next morning the harbour was completely
* London, 1818.
456 DENUDATION—FltOST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
choked with ice, and the ocean was one vast plain of broken
fragments as far as it was visible from the mast-head.
The reason assigned is a strong current, which flows con-
tinually along the whole of these shores, from Davis' Straits to
Nova Scotia. On the breaking up of the great northern bays
in spring, the low drift-ice is carried towards the south with
great velocity. It linally disappears, " in consequence of
Ijeing exposed to the heat of the sun." With labour and
difficulty, and much bumping amongst drift-ice, the " Eosa-
mond" got into St. John's Harbour about the 10th of June.
On the 14th, an "immense mountain of ice" was seenagromid
in forty fathoms (240 feet).
On the 10th of August, icebergs were numerous in the
Straits of Belleisle ;" twenty-seven mountains" were visible
from the quarter-deck ; some were aground in forty fathoms
(240 feet).
The Straits were about ten miles wide, with an average
depth of from thirty to forty fathoms ; icebergs abound and the
currents run three miles an hour in various directions. In
winter the Straits are entirely blocked with ice. The channel
between Cape Charles and Belleisle is generally choked by
numerous icebergs, which are driven by the southerly current
round the south-eastern extremity of Labrador (lat. 52°).
In lat. 60° 54' K, July 27th, 1814, l7l miles from Cape
llesolution, the "Kosamond" was surrounded on all sides by
numberless icebergs, which were floating south in a strong
cTirrent. Much field-ice was seen. At midnight they passed
an immense iceberg, which roared like a thunderstorm, in
consequence of some cavity through which a gentle undulating
swell was bursting, though the sea was nearly calm.
July SOth.—Tlie ship was entirely surrounded with a
])at('h of broken ice, which extended as far as the eye could
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 457
reach. The sun shining bright over the cahn surface of the
sea, recalled a description of the ruins of Palmyra, for the
scattered fragments bore a strong resemblance to ruins of
temples, columns, and statues, spread in confusion over a vast
plain*
August '6th.—Lat. 62° 54'.—In the middle of the night the
prospect from the ship was awful and sublime. As far as the
eye could reach, a vast alabaster pavement overspread the sur-
face of the sea, whose dark blue waters could only be seen at
intervals where parts of the pavement appeared to have been
convulsively torn up and heaped upon each other. The snow-
white surface of this immense plain formed a most striking
contrast to the deep black clouds of a stormy night, through
which uninterrupted flashes of forky lightning succeeded each
other with great rapidity. Add to this the peals of thunder,
the heavy plashing of the rain, the distant growling of
affrighted bears, the screams of sea-birds, and the whistling of
the w-md.
August 24:th.—Off Cape Charles.—"Of a sudden a noise
was heard like very distant thunder, and the crackling of fall-
ing beams in some immense conflagxation. The loose ice,
which had appeared so distant before, approached on all sides
with an imusual rapidity, the pieces driving one over another.
In ten minutes a person might travel for miles over a space
which had just before been water. The ice must have been
forced together by some extraordinary meeting of currents, as
there was but a sL'ght breeze."
It is shown by a later authority that tides hereabouts rise
sixty feet ; so this picture—ice excepted—applies to Liverpool
and the Bristol Channel.
The rivers which enter Hudson's Bay drive ice towards
Narrative of a Voyage to Hudson's Bay—Ciiappell ; 1817.
458 DENUDATION—FllOST-lNIARKS—LAND-ICE.
the sea with an amazing velocity wheu they break up in
spring. It carries everytliing forcibly away, and causes a
general ruin on the banks Ijy cutting down large bodies of
earth, and hurling trees and rocks from their places. It
frequently happens that innnense stones, lying at the bottom
of the rivers, become fixed in the ice during the winter, and
the freshets bear them away towards the sea in spring. These
are deposited at the mouths of the rivers, where they incom-
mode passages, and injure ships* cables ; for which reason this
fact is noted by the sailor who gives these word-pictures of
the ice-world in British latitudes.
According to Scoresby, the whalers bound for the western
fishery usually cross the Atlantic in lat. 58°, in order to avoid
a dangerous body of drift-ice, which sometimes extends for a
considerable distance to the south of Cape Farewell.
In lat. 61° r K, long. 56° 13' W., the "Eoyalist" was
wrecked amongst ice-islands afloat off Labrador, on the loth of
April. In short, all authorities, from the earliest discoverers
to the last explorers, unite in describing a glacial period
on the coasts of Greenland, Labrador, and Newfoundland.
The British Isles have passed their glacial period. They
lie between 50° and 60° N. lat., and great part of the peninsula
of Labrador is between the same parallels. The elevation of
land also coincides pretty nearly, but the climates differ.
Vivid pictures of life in Labrador and other northern regions
of America are given by Mr. Hind in his accounts of liis own
and other exploring expeditions.*
From these and other works it appears that American
climate varies neither with altitude, nor with latitude, nor
with longitude, but with these three dimensions combined.
Near the Atlantic, on northern and western coasts, are bare
* Loiiiloii, 18(J0-lia ; Longman.
AKCTIC CURHENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 459
rocks, mosses, liclieus, stunted vegetation, boulders, and con-
spicuous marks of old ice, beside ice-floats.
Near the foot of the Eocky IMountains, away from the
coast where cold ocean-currents cannot draw heat out of the
land, are tracts of rich woodland, which in English latitudes
rival English park scenery. At Fort Edmonton, between 52°
and 54°, at a height of 3000 feet, wheat is cultivated.
In Britain sea-ice is as rare as wheat is about the Straits
of Belleisle. At Hudson's Strait, and Ungava Bay, the chief
crop is sea-ice.
In Shetland no sea-ice is known.
So the cold climate is pushed south, and dragged down
nearer to the earth's centre by the Arctic Current and its ice-
floats.
The long floatmg broken glacier, whose centre is in the
North Polar Ijasui, does that which every separate iceberg,
every local glacial system, every glacier, and every bit of ice,
does on a smaller scale. It brings down currents of cold air
and clouds, and lowers the temperature near it. Within the
influence of the Arctic Current, American lakes, rivers, and
seas are grinding-engines, water-machines for lifting and
carrying stones.
In winter water becomes ice thick enough to gi-asp stones
of great size, and m spring ice Ijreaks, and winter floods are
strong enough to lift floats and carry them till the sun gains
power to melt them. While in motion the floats grind rocks;
when they are destroyed they drop their freights. Ice born
and bred at home does this work ; so every watershed is the
centre of a system of denudation by moving water, ice, and
stones ; and every hill-foot and river-mouth is a place of
deposition, where the chips are sorted.
Hamilton Inlet corresponds in position to Liverpool. On
4G0 DENUDATION—FHOST-MAKKS—LAND-ICE.
the 1st of July 1839, ice was still firm on a lake in that
neighbourhood, and ice ten feet thick lined the banks of a
river which was examined by Mr. Hind's exploring expedition.
Ungava Bay corresponds to the Cromarty Firth. The
soil consists of decayed lichens, and there is very little of it.
The country is a series of marshes separated by rocky ridges,
which are rounded ; a few trees grow in sheltered spots;
and the west coast is almost inaccessible from the contmual
presence of ice, and the force of currents which sweep violently
along the shore and amongst the islands. Tides here rise and
fall sixty feet (p. 145, vol. ii.) But this local drift is mmgled
with foreign drift from Spitzbergen and Melville Bay.
If the climate of Ungava Bay were transferred to the
Hebrides, denudation would go on there at a very different
rate, and Scotchmen would be forced to change their ways, as
they do when they cross the water.
People in Labrador are dragged al^out in sledges dra\\ii by
great dogs, or walk in snow-shoes like Escpiimeaux, Indians,
Siberians, and Laplanders. The coast is w^alled with ice
which, in winter, sometimes forms a jam fifty miles wide.
The ice-foot, so well described by Kane, is here in British
latitudes, and it is worked and built by a rise equal to the
heaviest English tides. The interior of the country has never
been fully explored. A j'ourney between places which nearly
correspond to London and Exeter, is along a canoe route,
where the country is like La]iland, 20° further north. (See
chap. XX.)
For red-deer, roe, ami hares, there are gigantic moose,
reindeer, bears, and other wild creatures, which rival those
whose bones are found in French and British ca\'es, bogs,
di'ift, and peat-mosses. Great herds of seals are the crews
wliich man the ice-11(H'ts at sea.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 401
Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence correspond to
France and tlie Bay of Biscay. The Straits of Belleisle corre-
spond to the English Channel ; but what strange contrasts a
few degrees of temperature lowered from the sky make in
these regions. For a warm clear sunny land, and an open
sea, with fleets of ships passing from all parts of the world to
the largest ports in it ; there is a frozen sea on which fogs
rest, a wintry land and fleets of ice, laden with home and
foreign drift, bound south. Occasionally the sea freezes at
the bottom, " anchor-ice" forms, sand becomes sandstone for
the time ; and at 60 or 70 feet below the water loose drift be-
comes solid rock.
In March and April, when " showers" in England begin
to "make May flowers," aliout 10,000 hardy Newfomidlanders
set off to hunt seals on floating "seal-meadows," Avhere
the sun is veiled by fogs, and the flowers are sea-weeds and
snow-crystals. The geological formation, which has been fol-
lowed from the polar basin—a crust of solid water—is form-
ing, breaking up, and moving al^out between 45" and 50°, and
men who venture on the crust venture their lives. AVhen
they drift away from their boats on ice-floes they starve, and
freeze into statues. Seals and fish, when caught and killed,
become stony ice-fossils, which are packed and carried home
to be melted at leisure, to be eaten and burned in lamps in
warmer climes. The Arctic Current flows on through the
Straits of Belleisle. The water is ice-cold in suunner, and 200
icebergs and bits of large ice have been seen there. {Hind,
p. 61, vol. ii.) That seems to be the cause of the cold about
Newfoundland. There is nothing of tlie kind on the opposite
coast of America in Vancouver's Land.
No arctic current now flows past Dover ; but if one
did, the climate would change, for the sun is as hot in
4G2 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
Lahrador as in the Britisli Isles, in Newfoundland as it is in
J'rancG.
Off the end of Newfoundland, where the warm Gulf
Stream meets the Arctic Current, and the ice-formation is
partly but not wholly fused, the delta of the ocean-streams
which rise in the polar basin seems to be forming and
formed. The great bank of Newfoundland is shaped like a
truncated triangle, and it seems to be the sunken moraine of
the floating glaciers. At one end it rises from the floor of the
ocean from 660 feet to 240 feet. The face is a steep bank,
420 feet liigh ; the top is a flat, whose area exceeds that of
Newfoundland. The surface is uniform, with a few depres-
sions. The lead brings up fine sand, pebbles, and mud ; but
icebergs drop boulders into this drift. It is a sunken land,
peopled by shoals of strange fish ; were it to rise, it would
be a plain of drift ; were it to rise gradually, the steep end
would be a terraced sea-margin. Were it dried, grass-grown,
washed by rain-water, and peopled by men, they would wonder
how the boulders got into their land ; or declare that they
grew in the clay banks of their rivers.
The last things farmers would think of would be currents
flowing over their land from the Equator to the Poles and
back, because they are driven by lieat and cold.
But nevertheless ocean-currents are real things, and they
do not always flow over the same parts of the earth's crust.
There is clear evidence that America has risen. Bones
of seals have been found in clay-pits near Montreal, at a
height of 140 feet above the present sea-level, and near the
city are well-marked sea-beaches, which contain marine shells
on hill-sides as high as 470 feet.
Montreal and Queliec nearly correspond to Bordeaux and
Marseilles on the opposite continent. Between them the
AKCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 403
great river St. Lawrence, nearly a mile wide, is bridged
with ice, and sometimes frozen to tlie bottom in winter. Asolid dam forms, but the pent-np water, in rising, floats it.
The mass charges down stream, jjushing over impediments,
crushing and grinding. It rushes up the banks, invades
gardens, peeps in at second-floor windows, dives under surface-
ice, and packs into cliffs of ice-conglomerate, forty or fifty
feet high. According to Sir William Logan, the ice once swept
down a stone warehouse like a house of cards.
But that great ice-engine is but a tiny model of the
cun-ent wliich is working on the same princiiile down the
coast of Xorth America, and which seems to be the chief
cause of the cold on shore, and of all the denudation which
is worked by the ice-engine in these regions.
The following extracts from a Canadian newspaper show the
difference between climates on opposite coasts more vividly
than a treatise :
—
CITY ITEMS.
THE WEATHER.Monday, February 8, 1864.
Observations by Archibald Hall, M.D., in MontreaL Elevation above
tide-water, 67 feet. Loner. 73° 36' W. Lat. 45^ 30' N.
4^)4 DKNITDATION—FRi^ST-MAKKS—LAND-TCM.
REMOVAL OF ICE AND SNO]V FROM THE ROOFS.
To the Editor of the Montreal Gazette :
Sir,"—I see in your issue of to-day attention is drawn to the fact of
a portion of tlie gutter of Mr. Prowse's building liaving fallen down
with a great crash, in consequence of an accumulation of snow and ice
on the roof, and that " it is a matter of congratulation that no one was
injured." I quite agree with you in this latter remark, but think, at
the same time, it would be a much better arrangement if Mr. Prowse or
any one else, whose gutters were overloaded with ice and snow, were
compelled to remove the chance of any accident hy not allowing the ice
and snow to accumulate on their roofs. There have been too manyaccidents of this kind already, and the death of an estimable young
lady from this cause, not many years since, is still fresh in the minds
of her relatives and friends. During this mUd winter there is more
reason than ever for paying attention to this risk to life, and if the
jjolice have not the power to enforce observance of its removal it is quite
time they had. I notice they are busily engaged in obliging tenants
and proprietors to keeji the side walks free from snow—why not at the
same time lift their eyes Tip to the roof and see that there are no icicles
five or six feet long hanging from the gutter, and, like Damocles' sword,
endangering the lives of any passers, by the breaking of a thread. I
trust that some of our sajjient Councillors may see the necessity of action
in this matter before it is too lute.
I am, your obdt. servant,
TAX-PAYER.Montreal, Feb. 9th, 1864.
A passenger car was attached to tlie freight train, which conveyed
lis as far as St. Lambert, at the foot of that wonderful Victoria Bridge
wliicli spans the St. Lawrence at Montreal, and there tlie officials of the
Grand Trunk Railway had kindly provided an engine to take us across
the bridge. Otherwise, there being no footway, and the half-frozen
river being practicable neither for sleighs nor for canoes, we should
have been forced to remain many more weary hours at St. Lambert.
As it was, when at half-past seven on the evening of the twenty-fourth
of December we were landed at tlie Grand Trunk Depot in Bonaventure
AKCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 46^"
Street, Montreal, we found that it had taken iis just thirty-six hoirrs
to accomplish a railway journey of four hundred and one miles.
Mr. Glaisher has shown that the glacial period is hovering
close over the heads of all tax-payers, and a very slight change
of cKmate would bring down the ice-formation and slay them
all.
It is not easy to realise the power of this engine, for big
things can only be taken in gradually. No one can bolt his
dinner whole ; but by degrees, with perseverance and a good
appetite, many an Esquimeaux swallows a herd of seals. Onthis principle ideas may be absorbed. In the nearest mason's
yard it is easy to watch the process of dressing stone.
Two men sit at opposite sides of a block, on which a flat
stone of a certain weight rests loosely. Water and sand are
between the stones, and with various mechanical aids, the men,
bowing and rising like rowers or sawyers, pull and push,
swinging like living pendulums beating seconds, till they are
tired. The upper stone weight is the bob of the pendulum,
the vital force of men the power ; and the engines must be
wound up, and supplied \nth. fuel.
The stone surfaces are kept wet and gritty, because they
wear and move faster in that state.
Say that a hard Yorkshire flag weighing 69 lbs.
with a surface of . . . 288 square inches,
was moved
by each double stroke of
a total distance of
during
and lost a thickness of .
weighing .
4 feet
1490 strokes
5960 feet
60 minutes,
iV of an inch,
one pound
;
which was the result of an experiment made in April 1864.
466 DENUDATION—FROST-MAEKS—LAND-ICE.
With that fact taken in, turn to the nearest tidal stream
—
say the Thames at Vauxhall Bridge—and watch floating corks,
dead cats, turnips, and harges, passing and repassing ; learn
the distance which water carries floats in a day while swinging
between Teddington and the sea, and the weight of the water
which swings, and the movement of floats.
After the river take a mental survey of some coast where
the tide ebbs and flows. Go to Dover, the Isle of Wight, the
Channel Islands, the SciUy Isles, the Hebrides, the Pentland
Firth, the coast of Norway, the Sound, the Straits of Gibral-
tar, or anywhere else, with memory for guide. Perch upon
some mountain, and watch the green water boiling, whirling,
and eddying like a mill-race, in its wide channel, at the rate
of five miles an hour or more ; never resting, only pausing to
turn ; and count up that weight and velocity.
Change the picture, turn the leaves of the mental portfolio
back, or take up a set of sketches or stereoscopic slides, and
look at the Alps, or Norway, or Iceland. Watch how glaciers
fill their grooves, as the sea fiUs the Thames, or a fjord, or
strait, or Highland loch. Compare the col with the corrie,
groove with groove, ice with water, float with float, the glacier
and moraine with the loaded Thames barge. Think of the
work done by this ice-weight, while moving an inch an hour
down hni on wet gritty rock, and of the muddy river which
carries away the dirt ; measure the work done by the mess
made ; calculate the tool-mark by the chips ; the work of
land-ice by the size and weight of moraines and mud.
Now laimch the largest mental glacier in the biggest
mental fjord ; fiU the Straits of Dover with wet gritty ice as
heavy as the chalk cliffs, with an occasional mountain as big
as Arthur's Seat ; set the tide to move this float, and swing
this weight up and down fifty miles a day, grounding on banks
ARCTIC CUERENT—FLOATS—GREENLAND, ETC. 467
and grinding stone surfaces perpetually ;—the mental engine
will be something like one little bit of the real tool.
If figures convey more meaning than pictures, multiply
mason's grit tiU it equals a moraine ; and amounts to glacier-
work multiplied by the known velocity of the run of the
tide ; and when that is done count how many masons, glaciers,
and local tides it woiild take at the mason's unit of stone-
polishing, to equal the work done in the area covered with ice-
floats, moved by the Arctic Current. Counting till figures fill
pages will not teach the lesson so well as pictures in books
about arctic voyages.
All the books that ever were written will not teach the
lesson so well as one good look at the real thing. Figures,
pictures, books, and the thing itself, wiU not teach the lesson
to men who will not learn.
What rock or sandbank could resist the force of islands
of ice plumpudding-stone moving at the rate of " seven or
eight," "four or five," or even "half a mile" an hour, and
always moving one way. If all the visible land off the coast
of Scotland were, like GuUiver's Island of Laputa, to fly
and drift over Scotch hills at the rate and level of Scotch
mist, surely they would leave a plain spoor. The broken mass
of ice-conglomerate, which has been followed thus far, is of
greater bulk, weight, and area, than all the visible land in the
British Isles put together, and it moves in endless procession
for the water, like a theatrical army—only goes round, changes
dress, and crosses the stage again.
So far then, geological denudation, past and present—the
result of movements in air, vapour, water, and ice—seems to
be the result of the arrangement of temperature in the atmo-
sphere and ocean, and of changes in the specific weight of air
and water. The engine seems to be worked by two opposing
468 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
forces, heat and weight, which move certain gases and fluids
from and towards the earth's centre, and so produce circula-
tion within certain limits ; definite movements, and denudation
of the earth's outer crust.
CHAPTEE XXVII.
DENUDATION 19—FEOST-MAEKS 17—LAND-ICE 16—^AECTIO
CUKEENT 5—FLOATS 6—MAP.
" You find in the art of memory that images visible work better
than other conceits," says Lord Bacon. A system of mechan-
ical notation has been mentioned above ; and various symbols,
diagrams, and contrivances have been used to illustrate move-
ments in systems of air and water circulating vertically
because of unequal temperature and weight. At pages 23,
24 68, 75, 78, 84, the vertical movements of air and water,
when affected by temperature, are illustrated by "visible
conceits." At page 86 a steam-engine, which does sculptor's
work with a revolving wheel, is described to illustrate the
working of natural engines which sculpture hills.
An attempt has been made thus far to condense and
illustrate subjects which are treated at length in scientific
works.
The woodcut is a further attempt at condensation ; it is
an "image visible" of the other "conceits" scattered througli
the preceding pages.
Let the wheel represent the sculptor's cutting-wheel, which
is made to revolve from N. to S., but is lifted and lowered at
pleasure from "weight" to "heat," and is moved hither and
thither to sculpture marble. It marks stone where it touches
;
when lifted it makes no mark ; and the cause of the move-
ment is unequal heat and weight ; natural forces subjected
470 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
to the will of man, in the boiler and condenser, and which
work under and over the piston.
Let the same symbol—the wheel—represent the circulat-
ing air-system in a room (p. 34), which moves from window
to fire and back, because of imequal heat and weight in air
in the room.
Let the same revolving wheel represent the double system
of air and water (p. 68), which circulates from floating ice to
a warm stone and back, because of unequal weight resulting
from unequal distribution of heat in a glass tank.
Let the wheel mean the systems which circulate from
ice to hot-water bottle (p. 75), from frozen water to freezing
water (p. 78), from Pole to Equator, from N. to S. (p. 84)
;
twine these angular figures round a circle, as in the diagram
p. 28, and the principle of circulation in the atmosphere from
K to W., and from W. back to K, is the same in all these
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 471
"conceits," which represent real things, however rudely.
The wheel in the diagram is but a symbol to represent the
vertical circulation of vapour, water, and ice.
Any system which is solid above, fluid in the middle, and
vapour imdemeath, is unstable like the symbolical wheel
;
and the water on the earth is in fact solid snow above the
highest mountains, fluid water in the sea, and steam under
the earth at many places. Because of unequal specific weight
in these three states, water tends to circulate as the wheel
would, if it were possible to make a wheel of ice, water, and
steam ; hot below and cold above ; boiling and freezing and
melting, as water does under the earth's surface and above it.
Let the axis of the wheel in the diagram be placed at any
given distance from a centre (marked " heat"), and let the
wheel be free to turn ; if weighi be taken from one side and
added to the other, the system must turn on its axis, and it
must continue to turn if weights are constantly replaced.
In nature sj)ecific weight is constantly taken from water by
solar heat at the Equator, and added to air and water at the
Poles ; and the atmosphere circulates accordingly, because it
is always ofi" the balance.
If an air-piston lifts one spoke, while rain, snow, haO,
rivers, icicles, glaciers, and all the various weights which fall
from the air, faU upon the other side of a mill—it must revolve
vertically.
If a weight is hung from an upper spoke, and a balloon
tied to one lower ; the weight wiU fall, the balloon will rise,
and they will turn the wheel between them. But in evapora-
tion and condensation water constantly expands and rises, is
lifted, and condenses and falls ; and therefore it circulates, and
works aqueous and glacial denudation.
If the sculptor's wheel is made to touch the bricks above
t72 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
the boiler, it cuts a groove, and throws a pile of chips from N.
toS.
In nature the ice-edge of the atmosphere comes down on
the earth's crust about Spitzbergen, and thence it cuts grooves,
and moves chips from N. towards S., above a leaky boiler ; for
steam, hot water, and hot lava are sputtering through chinks
all over the world, and especially in Iceland. The mechanics of
denudation aU seem to hinge upon temperature, and its action
on vapours, fluids, and solids, above the earth's surface and
under it, and the mechanics of upheaval, seem to hinge on
the same natural forces. If the series
—
Force,
Cold,
SoHd,
Fluid,
Vapour,
Heat,
Force,
exists in any known material at any attainable distance from
the earth's centre, the same principles govern the movements,
and circulation results, because the weight is above and the base
unstable, with a tendency to rise. If all the sea were solid
ice, and carbonic acid a fluid, there might still be circulation
in cold air, and showers of carbonic acid snow. If the sea
were aU steam, and its bed filled with molten lava, there might
still be arctic currents and trap-bergs in the hot sea.
There is, in fact, circulation in fluids at aU known tem-
peratures, when the greatest heat is below ; it seems to follow
that there would be atmospheric and oceanic circulation at any
temperature consistent with the fluidity and gaseous condition
of sufficient quantities of any materials at the earth's surface,
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 473
if only the heat were greatest at the Equator, and in the lowest
layer, as now.
The ice-edge of the atmospheric wheel comes down on the
top of the boiler, and cuts grooves and moves chips from N,
to S., but the boiler is turning from W. to E., and the tool
cuts a spiral pattern from N. to S. W. accordingly. If a line
is drawn from N. to S., while the paper is turned about the
point N'\ from W. to E., the line N. S. curves into a spiral
towards W. If the tail of a comma ^ is drawn straight, while
the dot , is turning from W. to E., or from right to left, the
tail will bend the same way. By weight and heat and centri-
fugal force, polar ice is driven from north to south, from the
474 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
Pole towards the Equator ; but the world is tuming from
west to east, and therefore, as it. seems, the Arctic Current
crosses meridians from KE. to S.W., or thereby. The pattern
drawn in currents and their marks is shown at page 28, and
on the map which is placed below. Something very like it
may be seen in photographs of the sun, and in drawings of
some planets.
Map.—Simple experiments show how fluids circulate when
driven by heat and cold.
One part is heavier than the other, because colder ; and
the streams which result are models of larger currents.
Because extremes of temperature lie north and south in
the northern hemisphere, the first movements are north and
south also. But because the earth's surface is moving, the
warm stream which moves off northwards flows towards the
north-east ; while the cold counter-current which starts south,
flows south-west. The cause and the result appear to be the
same in air and water.
The result of motion upon a moving surface is easily
understood and easily illustrated.
Lathe.—If a graving-tool is moved along the rest of a turn-
ing-lathe so as to mark a revolving disc, straight lines drawn
from circumference to circumference and back become oppo-
site spiral curves. The same straight line drawn two ways,
makes the opposite curves. According to the pace at
which the disc and point move, so is the pattern drawn
;
and one very common result is the pattern on the back of a
watch.
Potter's Wheel.—If a lump of clay is laid on a potter's
wheel, and the finger drawn from or towards the centre,
spiral grooves result from two movements. The lines may be
drawn on convex, concave, or flat surfaces ; on the top of a
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 475
jug, or the inside of a basia, or on the flat wheel itself ; but the
mark is a spiral if the point moves directly from or towards
the centre of any revolving system.
These are all different ways of drawing, modelling, or en-
graving ; but fluids and solids wUl draw and mould them-
selves when power is applied to them.
To-p.—If a disc of white card is fixed upon a spinning-top,
and a drop of ink is allowed to fall upon it while spinning,
the splash (p. 96) becomes a radiating spiraL The drop let
fall on a block fixed upon a potter's wheel draws its own course
for the engraver.
Wax.—Opposite radiating spirals are made by dropping
melted wax upon the convex top of a bull's-eye lens while it
is revolving horizontally ; and upon the inner edge of a con-
cave bowL In one case the falling wax moves from centre to
circumference, in the other from circumference to centre ; and
the movement in both cases, at first, is direct ; but the lines
described on the moving surface are curves.
Majp.—A map of regions about the North Pole laid flat
upon a potter's wheel, and made to revolve horizontally from
west to east, is a miniature representation of the Arctic
Eegions. Weight acts vertically at the plane surface of the
paper, and at the so-called plane of the sea : the same centri-
fugal force acts upon the polar sea, and upon any fluid which
is placed upon the pole of the flat map.
A few drops of any coloured fluid spilt upon the paper
fairly represent a vast number of drops which are poured into
the polar basin from clouds.
The scheme was thus tried in January 1863 :—An old con-
demned Bath chair was laid on its side, and a long string
wound round the nave of the upper wheel. The map was laid
on a drawing board, and the board made fast to the wheel, so
it6 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
that the pole of the map of the Arctic Eegions was the centre
of revolution. On this centre a small china drawing-saucer
was fixed, and when the whole was carefidly levelled and ad-
justed, an assistant walked off with the string, and spun the
wheel as the world spins : west—noon ; east—midnight.
While this makeshift for a potter's wheel was thus revolving,
blue ink was poured into the cup till it overflowed. A lucky
spin sent off a stream towards Spitzbergen, and it followed the
curve of the Arctic Current to Cape Farewell, where the map
ended.
Many trials gave various curves, but they were all spirals
crossing meridians from east to west, when the map was spun
ffom west to east.
Centrifugal force scattered the fluid and drove it towards
the circumference. It gathered way as it went, but each outer
circle moved faster than the circle within it, so the fluid
lagged behind the moving paper surface on which it was
pressed by the same gravitation which keeps the sea in its bed.
The same centrifugal force must act in the same direction
upon air, water, and ice-floats, and within the Arctic Circle
centrifugal force acts horizontally, while gravitation acts
vertically. The coloured fluid drew a south-westerly curve,
the sea does the same along the coast of Greenland, and it
carries powerful graving-tools.
This whirling map experiment is but setting natural forces
to work on a small scale. Marks drawn on the map are but
tracks of currents which moved because they were driven by
centrifugal force, along certain paths, over a surface which
turned under the moving fluid.
The opposite curve drawn from circumference to centre is
copied by dropping fluid into a whirling bowl, so that it tends
to move along a radius in converging lines.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—JIAP. 477
Eeverse the movement and tlie curves are reversed.
The letter X.—In a map of the world constructed on a
cylindrical projection, such as Plate I. of Keith Johnston's
Physical Atlas, degrees of longitude are made equal in all
latitudes.
Circles of four feet radius at the Poles are made equal to
the Equator, with a radius of 3962^ miles ; and the whole
surface of the sphere is distorted in this proportion.
Curves are stretched into straight lines by first squeezing
a solid ball into the shape of a cartridge ; and a flat map of the
leaden surface is got by unrolling the cartridge-paper.
If lines are drawn from north-east to south-west, and from
south-east to north-west, on a flat map on this construction,
they make a lattice-work of straight lines, which cross the
Equator and meridians at an angle of 45°, and these lines coin-
cide generally with most of the continental outlines in the
map. The straight lines ought aU to meet at the Poles. If
they are drawn on a globe, the letter X becomes the figure 8-
Thefigure 8-—As shown above, one natural south-westerly
curve of motion extends from a point north of Spitzbergen
towards the West Indies.
Globe.—^When the brazen meridian of a globe coincides
with 130° west longitude, and is so placed as to seem a line
stretching from pole to pole, the Arctic Current makes a loop
on the northern hemisphere, to the east of the meridian,
which may be compared to the letter P. The downstroke is
finished by the trade wind (p. 23).
In the southern hemisphere, another ocean-current comes
from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape St. Eoque, runs along the
north-eastern coast of South America, crosses the Equator,
and the tail of the northern current, and enters the Gulf of
Mexico.
478 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
With the meridian placed as above, it makes a loop on the
eastern side of the southern hemisphere, which may be likened
to the letter ]). It is a larger curve, and comes further north.
The two curves, and the meridian of 130° west longitude,
may be roughly likened to the letter B.
When any stream runs against a bank, or into a bay, it
swings off in some new direction reflected like a charge of
shot from a slanting wall, or like rays of light from a curved
mirror (see woodcut, p, 130). When the Equatorial Atlantic
Current, flowing north-westward, runs against North America,
and into the Gulf of Mexico, it swings back like the Thames
at Lower Hope, and glances ofi" at an equal angle north-east-
wards, past Newfoimdland, Iceland, Northern Scandinavia
and Spitzbergen ; but scattering over the whole Atlantic, and
running foul of Europe and Africa.
It seems to spread from the Gulf as rays spread from the
focus of a concave mirror. It sets off northwards from the
Gulf with an easterly movement equal to the velocity of the
earth's rotation at this low latitude, and with an easterly
reflected motion of its own.
With the meridian as before, the Gulf Stream doubles the
curve of the Arctic Current, and these three together still
make the curves B-
When the Arctic Current is stopped by the Isthmus of
Panama, it is aiming at or about New Zealand ; and the
main coast-lines of New Zealand and Eastern Australia trend
N.E. and S.W., as do the coasts of North America, Greenland,
Norway, and Scotland, which are washed and worn by the
Arctic and Equatorial Currents ; and by waves driven by
prevaling winds.
When the Antarctic Current is stopped by the Southern
States of North America, it is aiming at the Valley of the
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 47'.'
Mississippi ; at the base of the Eocky Mountains ; at prairies
and low-lying tracts, which extend to the polar basin.
If, instead of running foul of the banlc at Panama, either
of these two streams passed through, it M'ould flow on south-
westwards, or north-westwards, till it could flow no further,
and in crossing meridians the stream would curV' e on a sphere.
With the meridian as before, the extension of the Arctic Cur-
rent to New Zealand would make a curve like d.
A similar extension of the Antarctic Current would make
an upward curve like q.
All these curves p b d q^ added together make up the
figure 8 on the meridian |
.
This system of curves may be applied to coast-lines, glens
and hnis, winds and currents, which are laid down on globes.
If one comer of a sheet of tracing paper is pierced with
the North Polar axis of a common school globe, the curve of
the Arctic Current, and the line of the meridian are easily
traced, and carried to the Equator and the North Pole. The
result gives the curve p.
Taking this curve as a basis, the remaining three, b d Q^,
can be traced, cut out in paper to make the 8, and fixed on
the brazen meridian.
By turning the globe, forms are brought in succession to
the curve of motion which was the basis of the figure Q,
which is fastened to the brazen meridian.
"When this comparison is made it is seen
—
1st. That trade-winds, and other regular currents of air,
laid down by Maury on the diagram copied at p. 28, nearly
coincide with curves which make part of figure 8.
2d. That most of the large ocean-currents which are laid
down on charts and globes follow similar curves, in flowing
from the Poles to the Equator, or from the Equator to the Poles.
480 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
Sd. That most of the chief coast-lines in the world come
pretty near the edge of the paper.
4:t7i. That a great number of the largest mountaia-chains,
which would be coasts if land were submerged, bear some
relation to the same curves.
5th. That the down-stroke ^p, or the up-stroke ({\), maybe carried at various places in hollows, on shore, and over
sea, nearly from pole to pole.
It seems that some wearing power has been working
curves of denudation.
Surely all these coincidences of form with movement
cannot be accidental. Surely all these regular natural forms
record these constant movements of the engines which work
denudation and carve patterns on the solid earth.
It has been shown that moving water, and water loaded
with floating ice, wear rock so as to leave tracks. Anattempt will be made below to trace part of the pattern in
detail.
If a pencil is placed upon the North Pole of the globe,
and drawn along the brazen meridian to the South Pole, and
back to the North Pole again, while the globe is turned once
from west to east ; four straight lines drawn in the plane of
the fixed meridian become the four diagonal curves, ^p qj)
on the moving globe. If the down-stroke ^p passes near
Spitzbergen it follows the Arctic Current, along the coasts of
Greenland and North America.
If it passes from Novaya Zemlya south-westward, it
crosses the sea and low lands in Lapland, Sweden, Denmark,
England, and South America, till it gets to the volcanic
mountains of Peru.
If the up-stroke S crosses the Antarctic Circle, about 60°
east longitude, it passes over sea to the West Indies in the direc-
AKCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 481
tion of an ocean-current, crosses low land in North America,
and reaches the Arctic Circle about the Great Bear Lake.
It may fairly be assumed that if the whole surface of the
earth were covered with water, the water would flow as the
atmosphere now blows ; that the ocean would circulate, as
the air does, in regular curves, if weirs and dams did not cross
the streams. If so, for trade-winds there would be trade
water-streams ; and work which a system of ocean-currents is
able to do ought to bear the marks of this engine, if it ever
worked " denudation." The currents which now move along
these curves carry floats, and mark rocks with some of them.
A float—say an iceberg—which starts from Spitzbergen
with an easterly velocity equal to that of the fast land on
which it grew, and which moves off southward along a
meridian, would land in Norway if it sailed south. It does
in fact move south-west, and if it lasted long enough it
would reach the West Indies with the tail of the Arctic
Current. Another float—say a tree—which starts at Cuba
with a greater eastern velocity than the iceberg, equal to that
of fast land at this low latitude, and moves off northwards,
would land in Florida if it floated north. Floats which start
from the West Indies do in fact move north-eastward, and
are thrown upon the coasts of Iceland and Spitzbergen.
Both iceberg and tropical growth describe the curve pwhile they float, and one is an engine which carves rocks
and carries chips.
But if either of these moving solids crossed the Equator,
the floats, like the streams, woidd complete the figure 8 ;
and where the floats made tracks they too would foUow the
curves which the pencil drew on the turning globe.
Take one more possible case of transport by ocean-currents.
Molucca Beans.—If the Straits of Malacca are brought
2 I
482 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
round to the place where the Imes of the figure 8 cross ; the
upward curve S leads to the Great Andaman, and into the
Bay of Bengal, where there is a barrier of land and a conflict
of winds and ocean-streams, most of which cross meridians
diagonally ; it is possible that a seed grown about the Straits
of Malacca might drift to the Andaman Isles.
If the globe is now turned eastwards till the Bay of Bengal
is on the right side of the figure 8, the reflected curve bleads to the Cape of Good Hope, and a current flows in
that direction down the eastern coast of Africa. It is pos-
sible that the seed might float to the Cape of Good Hope.
If the globe is turned eastwards till this station is to the
right of the figure 8, the curve S leads to the Gulf of Mexico
and the West Indies ; and in those seas numerous ocean-
currents make it possible and probable that a float might drift
north-west so far.
At Florida there is a barrier of land, and the upper part
of S becomes the upper part of B hy reflection. If the globe
is turned once more till Florida is to the right of the figure
8, the reflected curve of movement p, and the Gxilf Stream,
lead to Iceland and Spitzbergen, and to Western Europe. It is
possible and probable, and it is certain, that tropical seeds may
and do in fact drift to Iceland. It is possible that they are seeds
which grew about the Straits of Malacca, or in some of the
islands of the Pacific, or in Mozambique, or in the West Indies.
On the south-western shore of Iceland, mahogany logs are
stranded, with other drift trees. Mahogany grows to the
south-west, but as it is an article of commerce, it may be ob-
jected that a ship had something to do with the transport of
this float. Where the logs are stranded the climate is mild,
and ships do not carry tropical heat, though streams do. On
the same shore certain large beans are found. According to
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 483
Dr. Hjaltelin of Eeykjavik, they are found chiefly to the east,
near Cape Langaness, and in the west part of the island, at
points which project into and cross the streams so as to make
eddies. These have no commercial value, hut they float well,
and being of an oily nature they resist water. It is possible
that these floats have sailed from the Straits of Malacca, round
the Cape of Good Hope, through the Gulf of Mexico, to Ice-
land. Perhaps they reach Spitzbergen. Now for the facts :
—
1. Beans Hke them grow about the Straits of Malacca.
2. In shape, size, colour, and appearance, they seem to an
uneducated eye to be identical with beans which are worn as
ornaments by the savage inhabitants of the Andaman Isles,
who would not so prize them if they grew commonly in their
country. A friend was instructed to watch for them off the
Cape on his way to India, but there was no result.
3. Drawings of seeds picked up in Barra were sent to a
friend at Cape Town, and Mr. Layard, curator of the museum
there, has been kind enough to give the following informa-
tion as to these floats :
—
" Nos. 1 and 2 I have seen in Ceylon, Mauritius, Mada-
gascar, the Comoro Islands, and all along the coast of East
Africa from Fazy (11° south of the Line) to Table Bay. No. 2
I am not quite sure of having seen in Table Bay itself. Nos.
3 and 4 I do not know, but there is another seed which I have
seen mingled with Nos. 1 and 2, which is not noted on the
paper, a roimd gray seed, polished surface.* I may mention
also that on Sandy Island and Farquhar's Island, to the KE.of Madagascar, I saw the ' coco de mer,' or double cocoa-nut
of the Seychelles, thrown up on the sandy beaches.
" E. L. Layaed."
• A "round gray seed with a polished "striped mottled surface is found in the
Hebrides ; it is much prized as a fire insurance, which the owners will not sell.
iW*" DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
4. The spoor of the ocean-current seems to he marked by
stranded floats from the Andaman Isles to the Seychelles,
thence to Madagascar and Cape Town. The next stage is in the
West Indies. A friend in Jamaica was requested to look out for
floats, but the only result was one " horse-eye" found on shore.
Beans, called "horse eyes," grow in the West Indies, and one
kind seems to be identical with some drifted seeds. Of the
two kinds, of which specimens were got in Iceland, numerous
specimens have been collected in the western islands of Scot-
land, and on the west coast of Ireland, and in the A zores. They
are looked on as strange, mysterious, outlandish, magical, medi-
cinal, incomprehensible sea things. In the Andaman Isles
they are ornaments ; in the West Indies toys for children ; in
Ireland they keep away the fairies ; in Scotland they are
"Molucca beans," "sea-nuts," " fairy eggs," cures for sick cattle,
snuff-boxes, silver-mounted amulets blessed by the priest, toys
for children, puzzles for grown men ; in Iceland they are "Ljusne
sten," and worn by women who live far from help, in their hour
of need. Botanists give them hard names ; they cannot say
for certain where they grew, but the place of their growth was
somewhere near the Equator. The nearest j^ossible starting-
place for the Ljusne sten of Iceland is near the place where
mahogany grows, and sea-water is tepid. It is possible that
they came from Borneo, for currents run backwards along four
curves of the figure 8, B b b from right to left, and the floats
are found along the whole route.
Take another possible case of a spoor :
—
If Cape Horn is brought round to the edge of the down-
ward curve d, a curious bight on the eastern coast looks like
a bay in a river bank where there is an eddy, and an ocean-
current does in fact flow in from the north-east, and swirl off
north-eastwards again. If the curves dP are followed into
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 485
this bight, they pass over flat low lands ; beds of sand, clay,
and drift;gaps in hills, and wide sea, all the way from the
North Pole. The curves pass over European Eussia, avoid-
ing the Ural Mountains ; over the Black Sea, and the Medi-
terranean ; over the deserts of Africa, through a gap in
which the Niger flows ; over the Atlantic, and so down to the
Falkland Islands, where the stream swirls round.
Take another at the opposite end of the world :
—
On the western coast of North America is a corresponding
bight made by the promontory of Alaska, and near it is a
swirl in the Pacific which goes by the name of " Fleurieus's
whirlpool" If this bight is brought round to the curve S.
it comes near one of the highest and longest mountain-chains
in the world, and passes over a region of active volcanic dis-
turbance, which includes Peru and the Aleutian Islands.
But if the curve is carried eastward to the foot of the Ptocky
Mountains, it coincides with ocean-currents from the Cape
of Good Hope to North America, and with the valley of the
Mississippi, the prairies, and the " barren lands" and low
lake districts which are described by Franklin, Back, and
other explorers of North America. -.
In these two bights, at opposite ends and sides of America,
there seems to be evidence of some wearing force, similar to
that of a river, which wears its banks.
The Gulf of Mexico has the form which results when a
stream runs directly against a bank ; and two streams aim at
the bank—namely, the Arctic Current p, and the South
Atlantic Current b, which together make B-
As a whole tract of land in South Amercia was raised
some feet during an earthquake ; as Greenland and Scandinavia
are playing at see-saw now ; as aU Europe has been under
water, and great part of North America is an ancient sea-
486 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE,
bottom strewed with drift, the old bed of the sea, like the bed
of a gutter after a shower, ought to bear marks of the streams
which moved over it, and the dry land ought to retain the
spoor of the sea with its floats.
If air and ocean circulate in curves because the sun shines
and the earth revolves, they must have obeyed the same laws
ever since the sun shone upon a revolving earth, whose sur-
face temperature maintained the fluidity of an ocean.
Denudation.—But ocean-waves and streams and floating
ice all engrave lines, and at the poles ice is influenced by
mechanical forces which tend to drive it southwards.
Centrifugal Force.—If the curved surface of the whole
ocean results from equilibrium in forces which act upon fluids
on a revolving globe, so as to drag them towards the centre by
weight, and drive them towards the circumference of planes
cut through the axis at every latitude ; a solid float, projecting
from one foot to three himdred, and free to move, is an un-
stable excrescence exposed to the same forces which so act on
water as to work it into a smooth curve. It is like wax
dropped on a spinning top, or ink spilt on a whirling map.
Weight drags it down, and keeps it balanced at a certain dis-
tance from the earth's centre, but contrifugal force acts at right
angles to gravitation, near the Poles. It drives the float away
from the centre of rotation, and it is not directly opposed by
the sinking force tiU the Equator is reached. The force which
keeps a stone from falling out of a sling tiU the string is loosed,
must sling ice away from the Poles, imless the mass is of equal
dimensions upon all sides of the axis about which it revolves.
There is no cable to moor the float to the Pole ; the cable is
" up and down," and the anchor is at the earth's centre. There
is a force to swing the ship along the sea, and it ought to
move south because of centrifugal force.
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 487
A float 2000 miles in diameter is a body about as big as
some asteroids, and subject to laws wliich govern the move-
ments of planets and projectiles great and small ; it is off the
balance at the Pole, for the shape is irregular. The sun and
moon, which lift tidal waves out of the ocean;planets, which
disturb other planets in their orbits ; all stars, visible and
invisible, except pole-stars—attract ice at the Poles towards
the polar horizon ; and as they do not all pull equally in
opposite directions, there must always be an extra pull along
some spoke of the revolving wheel
Izent.re:
j-!,,;,The loose floating mass which projects above the searlevel
at the North Pole cannot rest there. It is out of equilibrium,
imstable, dragged, and pushed, so it must move. It can only
move south, and if it moves an inch from the centre,
centrifugal force comes into play and urges it on. But the
edge of the disc on which it moves, moves fastest, so the ice
moves ia curves. It moves south-west, escapes where it can,
and marks its path till it melts and sinks into its place in the
4^8 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
curved sea. It cannot rest even there, so it moves on in
obedience to laws which govern fluids at the Equator. Currents
flow, and clouds fly back ; rivers flow into the hollow ; and so
the endless march endures.
The ice-tool and the engine made of air and water work
like a chisel cutting patterns on a ball in a lathe, and laying
bare fresh layers as it cuts new spiral grooves. The tool does
mighty work, urged by radiating and converging forces.
These seem to resolve themselves into heat, weight, and
motion. There are giant hands to guide the engine which
" crushes moimtains like mole-hills," but there is something
behind all these to guide the hands, and move the lathe, and
that is surely the will of Him who made them.
Old Marks—America.—Near a glacier which has changed
its position or dimensions, old marks are commonly found, as
shown above, pp. 181, 197, 210, etc. In North America, on land
beside the arctic currents above mentioned, ice-marks also
abound. The report of the Geological Survey of Canada for 1863
devotes a section to " Superficial Geology," and specially refers
to grooving, polishing, and rounding of rocks, and to " ice-
grooves," which are attributed to the action ofgreat glaciers. In
this the authors of the report agree with the theory of Professor
Eamsay, who has endeavoured to show that many depressions
which now contain lakes in Europe are rock-basins, which
were produced by the slow grinding of large glaciers moving
over strata of unequal hardness. In order to account for a
change of climate sufficient to account for glaciers large enough
to do the work, various theories have been started, including
great elevations of land. In the preceding pages an attempt
has been made to account for a sufficient change of climate,
by small depressions of land, sufficient to let jiolar currents flow
out of polar basins in various directions, at difterciit periods.
ARCTIC CUHRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 489
According to the authors of the Canadian report, who
are best able to form an opinion, many of the American lake-
basins are, in fact, hollows worn in soft beds of rock, and these
are conspicuously marked with ice-grooves. It has been shown
above, and it will be shown below, that many European hollows
are not depressions of the crust, but hollows dug out of the
crust, and that these large hollows contain small ice-grooves.
A list of places where such grooves are found in Canada
is given in the report of 1863, p. 890. At 145 stations the
grooves point southwards. Of these, 85 point to the west of
south ; 60 to the east of south. The greatest variations from
the meridian are, S. 74 W., and S. 79 E.
So far the direction of movement in the low grounds spreads
over 143° of a circle ; but there is no common centre from
which the spokes of this wheel diverge, in a tract which
extends far and wide.
North
50°
West 84° 29' 59° 12' Longitude.
45°
Latitude.
If the cold streams of freezing and frozen water and ice-
bergs which now flow down Davis Strait, Frobisher's Strait,
and Hudson's Strait, and get to the latitude of the Azores, were
to run over Labrador and Canada, from the present position
of Hudson's Bay, and up the valley of the St. Lawrence, the
probable direction would be southwards ; but east or west
according to the shape of the land above water, or near the
surface of the stream. A small d.epression of a disturbed tract
of land, no bigger than tracts which are, in fact, risiug and
falling, is all that is wanted to let in the floating glacier,
whose centre of motion is the North Pole.
490 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
A system of land-ice moving southwards and south-west-
wards at low levels in Canada, and south-westwards at
high levels in Scandinavia and in America, would have to be
about the dimensions of the tract coloured blue on the map,
and from 3000 to 4000 feet thick, in latitude 40°, at the edge.
Unless in the planet Mars no such glaciers are even svispected
to exist now. But the blue patch in the centre of the map
represents something which does really exist now, in our own
planet. It is the area within which an average annual tem-
perature of less than 32° exists at the sea-level. The blue
rim of the wheel is intended to show an unmeasured region
in the atmosphere, in which the mean annual temperature,
above a certain maximum height of 15,000 feet, is also less
than 32° now, at our Equator.
If the surface temperature of the globe were everywhere
less than 32°, the whole sea might be covered with ice and
great part of it frozen solid ; but even then there is no force
to make the solid polar glacier move west. The floating
glacier does move westwards, apparently for the reasons
stated above. The blue curves which radiate from the blue
centre, like blue fire from a Catharine wheel, show the
actual course of cold streams of air, water, and ice, which
are now scratching rocks and carrying big stones nearly to
lat. 40°. If the sea were over the plains of North America,
the same whirling blue frost-marks which make ice-marks
in the Bay of Fundy and at New York, might also whirl as
far as Montreal, where the striae point south-westward ; and
Niagara, where they also point to the west of south, up
stream in a trench which rims south-west. The promised
Canadian map of superficial geology has not yet appeared,
and the elevation of these points of observation is not
given in the report ; but the stations seem to be low, and
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 491
low marks are most liable to be affected by small local eleva-
tions.
High marks near hill-tops are best for general movements,
like those now under consideration.
A paper by Professor Eamsay, in the Quarterly Journal
of the Geological Society for May 1859, gives some observations
on striae near hill-tops. To the practised eye of the student
of glacial phenomena the hills about the Straits of Belleisle
seemed to have been "moulded hj ice!' The youngest student
in this class knows the meaning of this expression ; the form
^—V has been used above as a symbol, and a rough sketch
made from Scotch nature is lithographed on the margin of
the map, to show the natural form. Any collection of good
Scotch photographs of hills will show these rock-forms in
greater detail. To this general shape of denudation other
evidence is added, to show that a sea about 3000 feet deep
once covered this part of North America. The plain country
is literally covered with " drift," which is 500 to 800 feet
thick in some places— unstratified below, stratified above.
The depth and nature of the drift which is now sinking on
the banks of ISTewfoundland must surely agree with parts of
this American formation. In lat. 42° K, at a height of 2850
feet on the Catskill IMountains, Eamsay found no traces of
local glaciers, or of systems radiating from the hills, but he
found ice-grooves running horizontally along the flanks of a
steep escarpment. On the small map which is given with
this paper, the marks seem to come southwards from the N.E.,
to scrape the hiU-side, and turn round the end of a ridge
through a gap—first south-westwards, and then west. That
is to say, the modern ocean-curve, which has been followed
from lat. 82° long. 20 E., is carried to lat. 42° long. 80 W., by
a very competent observer, whose views, as published and as
4.92 DENUDATION—FROST-MAEKS—LAND-ICE.
stated in the Canadian report, now tend to the grinding action
of enormous land-ice before the drift period. But if sea-ice
passed along the American chain of mountains at nearly 3000
feet above the present sea-level, the land must have been
lower, not higher, when the horizontal grooves were made on
mountain and plain.
If the ice was land-ice travelling south over America, the
snowshed must have been near the Pole, and it must have
been 3000 feet thick at the end of the Catskill Mountains.
The northern mass must have been big enough to absorb a
large measure of all the water now available in the sea ; and
the southern mass must have taken another large gulp.
Such glaciers are possible. There is good reason to believe
that polar ice of large dimensions now exists in Mars. If
the earth is cooling it is probable that the sea will freeze at
last. But in all older formations geological evidence seems
to point at warm climates in high latitudes and tropical
climates in temperate zones. A general glacial period seems
out of place between the coal formation and the present
climate of our world, though it seems to be established that
some glaciers existed soon after the period of coal-measure
vegetation.
The floating glacier which is at work in the sea below the
north-eastern end of the Appalachian chain seems big enough
and strong enough to account for the ice-work and the chips
in North America.
According to all authorities, boulders and glacial drift
abound in America. In the Montreal beds Sir W. Logan
and Dr. Dawson found a number of the " caudal vertebrae of
a cetacean" (Bclluga Vcrmontana) ;" aiblins it was a whale," as
the auld wife said to the minister. At 118, 140, 150, 1264,
2196, 2449, 2665 feet, and such heights above the sea, bones
ARCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 493
of seals, beds of sliells, and terraces, on the Appalachian
chain—aU seem to prove that North America has risen
bodily, and that it rose from a frozen sea which made the
grooves and dropped the chips, and worked all the " denuda-
tion" which ocean-currents are capable of doing by the help
of hard frost.
According to Professor Hind's books, the whole table-land
of Labrador is strewed with erratics ; his lithographs show
forms which resemble Swedish landscapes. The far west has
a surface of fine loam, which is mud when wet, dust when
dry ; a waving sea of green grass in summer, and a rolling
white snow-prairie in winter. Salt springs, salt rivers, and
salt licks are found in these plains. It seems as if birds had
taken the place of Newfoundland cod ; and buffaloes had
succeeded to whales, morse, and seals. Men hunt on the old
sea-bottom instead of angling and spearing game from floats
drifting over it. Where all this evidence of a rise of land
thus abounds, signs of a force strong enough to make the
change are common also. Earthquakes shake Labrador ; a
volcano is supposed to be active somewhere, because smoke
has been seen. The land is unexplored because it is barren,
it is barren because it is cold, it is cold because the floating
glacier is on the coast. Vancouver's Island has an English
climate because there is no floating glacier on that side.
In 1860 Mr. Hind (at p. 266) points out that lines of
American denudation " seem to point to the action of currents
of which the Gulf Stream and the compensating arctic currents
are modern illustrations." To this conclusion the facts
stated in these pages, and the argument founded on evidence
picked up in reading and travelling since 1841, seem also to
lead. A glacier is a land creature ; a sea-glacier is like an
otter which makes a spoor at sea and on land. From New-
494 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—LAND-ICE.
foundland to Florida, banks at sea and hills on land seem to
foUow the general curve of the Arctic Current, which has
been copied, multiplied, and transferred to this map.
Old Marks—Europe.—If this be so, and if it be true that
Scotland and Scandinavia have risen, and are now rising, then
there probably was a time—geologically modern, but histori-
cally very ancient—when most of Europe was submerged. In
particular, the land which divides the GuK of Bothnia from the
Polar Ocean was at some time under water, and the backbone
of Scandinavia was then in the same position with reference to
polar currents as Greenland. If the submergence was general
in these longitudes, then the hills of Ireland, Scotland, Cum-
berland, Yorkshire, Wales, and Devonshire, were islands, in the
position of Labrador and Newfoimdland, and in the track of
floating icebergs. They were aU to the westward of a sea,
whose eastern shore may have been about the Uralian moun-
tains, and high lands in Europe and Asia.
Everything beiag the same, except the relative elevation
,of lands which certainly have risen a certaki number of inches
within the last half-century, and which bear marks of having
: risen very much more, the climate of Scandinavia and of the
British Isles ought once to have been the same as those of
Greenland and Labrador ; because the old Arctic Current of the
old European ocean must have obeyed the laws which now
govern currents in the Atlantic.
In Lyell's Princvples of Geology, p. 121, a map is given of
Europe as it may have existed at some former period of the
world's history. Erom imdeniable geological evidence, it
appears that most of it was under water at some time after
the earth's present solid rock surface had assumed its present
general shape of lull and hollow.
If so, according to the argument above stated, an ice-laden
AKCTIC CURRENT—FLOATS—MAP. 495
stream must have swung westwards, along and over the low
land of Sweden, coasting the mountains of Swedish Lapland;
while a series of local glaciers dug a herring-bone pattern of
deep glens out of the plateaux which now form the Norwegian
Fjeld, and the backbone of Scandinavia. If this theory be well
founded, these countries ought to bear the marks of an arctic
current, as well as those of local glaciers ; they ought to bear
marks like those which exist in Iceland and Labrador, and
the United States.
They ought to show their part of the curve which would
make the letter p upon some meridian corresponding to that
which makes the upright stroke of the same letter, with the
present Arctic Current for a curve. An attempt has been made
to show that ice-marks in Scandinavia and Iceland do in fact
agree with this theory, and with no other which has yet been
started.
The British Isles should also show their part of the curve,
in glens, valleys, grooves, and scratches, and in ridges of drift,
aU pointing north-east and south-west, or thereby. In fact,
the chief glens, firths, rivers, and sounds in Scotland fit curves,
which come out of the largest Norwegian fjords, where large
glaciers have left their marks ; and the drift districts are
joined to Novaya Zemlya by curves which pass over low ice-
ground countries and sandy lands, gulfs, lakes, glens, and
seas, aU the way to the polar ice. (See map, p. 232.)
The spiral curve, regularly drawn from the North Pole to
Dover, passes down the Channel, touching France and Spain,
and enters the vaUey of the Amazon.
The same curve, drawn from Spitzbergen through Panama,
touches New Zealand.
The curve of the Arctic Current and the curve produced
by spilling ink upon revolving paper, have been drawn on the
496 DENUDATION—FROST-MARKS—I.AND-ICE.
annexed map ; it shows that theory and experiment agree
tolerably well with facts so far.
The next step is to see whether any such curves are in fact
drawn upon any rocks, and the first beat is near home.